But let's not get ahead of ourselves. What has happened here is Arlen Specter has been forced out by a calcifying, radicalizing GOP. He was about to become a sacrifice to that radicalization and clearly didn't have anywhere else to go. Conventional wisdom at this point in time will claim this as a portent of Republican weakness in 2010. I have other ideas but it's still a bit too early to tell. Either way, I'll be very interested to see what a Toomey vs Specter general election looks like.
Update: Josh Marshall has some preliminary thoughts:
Democratic registrations swelled in Pennsylvania last year at the expense of Republicans. A lot of that was moderate Republicans who wanted to vote for Obama in the primary or the general. Or for that matter, moderate Republicans who wanted to vote for Hillary. Whatever your interpretation of why they were switching, that left the Republican primary electorate much more conservative than it was in the past, certainly much more than it was when he ran against Toomey the first time in 2004.
The question is just how "moderate" will those "moderate Republicans" who crossed over in 2008 remain?
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