Old habits are hard to give up, and that seems especially true for newly-minted Democratic Senator Arlen Specter.
As he entered the chamber through the Republican side for a vote on an amendment to a war funding bill, he stopped at the Republican desk where aides put information about the pending measure.
Democratic Senator John Kerry, standing by the Democratic desk, called out across the chamber to Specter: “Arlen, Arlen, we’re over here!”
Specter looked up from the desk and, with a sheepish grin on his face, walked over to the Democratic side of the Senate chamber.
And even though he has made it clear that he will not always vote with his new Democratic friends, Specter did vote with them to reject a Republican amendment that would have stripped out President Barack Obama’s request to extend up to $108 billion in credit lines to the International Monetary Fund.
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Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Specter with Obama assembling care packages for U.S. troops at the White House)
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These days, party affiliation only means if you’re (financially) on the winning side in the campaign fund horse race.
We (used to) have a history of a third party springing up when both parties in our historically two party system became too cozy in the routine of agreeing to use one side of the extreme rhetoric while the status quo went on (at a time of trouble that required action instead of jockeying for position).
Spector only has a career now because the only third party movements of late have been cults of personality around egotistical billionaires trying to buy a place in history. Whether he enters the correct door or not is less relevant than having parties with so little backbone or principal that they’ve only become brand names.
- Posted by Brian Foulkrod