Specter may haunt Dems

There have been many interesting reactions to the switch of Sen. Arlen Specter from the Republican to the Democratic Party. Democrats in Congress are thrilled, of course, because if Al Franken in Minnesota ever gets to take his seat (the incumbent he defeated, Norm Coleman, is stretching things out in court), the Democrats will have 60 members, enough to defeat Republican filibusters and move President Obama's agenda through without worrying about throwing concessions to moderate Republicans.

That's what they think, anyway, and Specter might indeed turn out to be the vote they need to turn the tide. But he is an unreliable ally, as Republicans have learned over the years, and values his own political career more than anything else. So Democrats could be welcoming the proverbial pig in a poke.

Specter is 79 years old. He's been in the Senate since 1981. The Pennsylvania Republican Party, like most state Republican parties, has grown more and more conservative with each passing year. It was clear to almost all that he could not beat a serious challenge in the Republican primary; he almost lost in 2004. A decent man would have said, "You know, I've had a good run. It's time to hang it up and head for the house." (Maybe they don't talk that way in Pennsylvania. Sub your own dialect.)

But he would rather seek another term as a member of the party he left as a young man because he had better chances of election as a Republican (see a pattern here?) than gracefully retire amid honors and salutes and encomia. The man reeks.

A lot of people on the left - about everyone who does not have "Sen." In front of his or her name, in fact - are not thrilled by Specter's move. Throughout the Bush years, he consistently voted the White House line. His reputation as a moderate is chiefly because he is pro-choice on abortion. He is no flaming liberal by any means.

Because Specter has been promised national Democratic Party help and money, it will be that much harder for a genuine Democrat to challenge him in their party primary. Specter has something in common with Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas - he's more popular with the electorate as a whole than with the hard-core activists in his own party.

Democrats had been looking at Specter's re-election race with a great deal of hope: Specter would be beaten in the primary by Pat Toomey, the guy who almost beat him in 2004. Toomey is an extreme right-winger and would be a sitting duck for any halfway decent Democrat. Now, though, Dems are saddled with a creaking old pol without a shred of principle to his name and will be expected to sit down, shut up and vote the party line.

No doubt, some feisty Democrat, most likely one with no money and no name recognition, will defy the national party and enter the primary against Specter. If the nation is lucky, we might get another Internet millionaire like Ned Lamont, who in 2006 ran against Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary and won.

In that case, Lieberman turned around and ran as an independent, Republican voters abandoned their own candidate and voted for him, and Joe squeaked out a win in the general election. It was all thoroughly entertaining from a distance, even if the ultimate outcome was disappointing.

Pennsylvania, though, has a "sour grapes" law: if a candidate runs in one party's primary and loses, he can't switch parties or go independent and run for the same office in the general election. So if Specter were to lose a primary fight, he'd be facing retirement in January 2011, just as he would be if he knew the meaning of the word "decency."