PA-Sen: Obama, Menendez Throw Their Support Behind Specter

Barack Obama has got Arlen Specter’s back:

When asked if Obama would like to see a more reliable Democrat challenge Specter for the 2010 nomination, [White House press secretary Robert] Gibbs referenced the president’s morning comments: “He has the president’s full support. He’s thrilled that he’s switched parties and is a Democrat.”

“If the president is asked to raise money for Sen. Specter, he’ll be happy to do it. If the president is asked to campaign for Sen. Specter, we’ll be happy to do it.” Gibbs said that includes the primary as well as the general election.

And it looks like we’re all reading from the same hymnal at Our Lady of the Blue Donkey Church: Bob Menendez has also come down for Specter. From a DSCC press release (via email):

We welcome Senator Arlen Specter to the Democratic Party. The more the merrier. I just spoke with the Senator on the phone, told him that I look forward to supporting him and making sure this seat stays Democratic in November of 2010.

Joe Torsella may say he’s staying in, and Joe Sestak may claim he’s keeping his options open, but the path to the Democratic nomination for anyone other than Arlen Specter just got a whole lot narrower. Sure, the DSCC likes to say it doesn’t “endorse” candidates, but they just didn’t endorse Specter the same way they didn’t endorse Jeff Merkley.

Anyhow, that’s small potatoes alongside what Gibbs said. I can’t really imagine a serious Democrat interested in going up against the President’s own machine. Then again, stranger things have happened – they certainly did today.

In light of all this this, the Swing State Project is changing its rating on PA-Sen from Lean Republican to Likely Democrat.

66 thoughts on “PA-Sen: Obama, Menendez Throw Their Support Behind Specter”

  2. http://theplumline.whorunsgov….

    Harry Reid’s office confirms to me that he will keep backing Specter in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary, even if Specter keeps up his opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act.

    Only a month ago, Reid suggested to reporters that Specter’s opposition to EFCA was a dealbreaker in terms of a party switch.

    Specter also confirmed today that he will continue to oppose Dawn Johnsen, who is prized by many liberal Demcrats, for the crucial post of Office of Legal Counsel chief, where she would have a major role in determining what Bush-era legal practices get reversed.

    No EFCA. No Johnsen. The outstanding question for Dems remains, What in practice will they get out of this deal?

    So what exactly are we getting out this?

  3. All we got is the opportunity to NOT get a better Senator from Pennsylvania.

    Hopefully he’ll get primaried after he blocks cloture on a couple of things.

  4. If the primary is going to be successful, it’ll need it to be clearly stressed that a rejection of Arlen Specter is a rejection of Arlen Specter, not a rejection of conservative Democrats.

    Obama supporting him means that any battle will have to be a lot bloodier and that the odds of success will go down significantly. My only hope is that he shows his usual reluctance to put his head above the parapet and skirts around Pennsylvania as much as possible.

  5. I honestly think all this public independent thinker/no guaranteed 60th vote stuff from Specter is just bluster. He must have told Dem leaders in private he would vote with them on almost everything. They sure seem to tripping over themselves to announce their strong support of his re-election. He needs to put on a show lest he look like a complete opportunist.

    He’ll probably remain conservative on some things like gun rights and crime but that’s about it. I think he’s going to take a sharp turn to the left on economics.

  6. since Lincoln got a clear message from Wall-Mart, it’s not going to come up for a vote in the 111th Congress anyway; by the 112th, Specter has enough distance (and another election) between him and his actions now, and his vote very likely wouldn’t matter anyway, if current trends toward Democratic senators pan out.

  7. but even if Specter turns out to be a strong Democrat who votes with us regularly, he is 80 and had cancer.

    This means that the Governor’s race in PA is very very important.

  8. http://theplumline.whorunsgov….

    A White House aide confirms to me that Joe Biden had a total of six in-person meetings and at least eight phone calls with Specter since the stimulus package passed early this year.

    …  the specific number of conversations illustrates much more White House involvement than was first evident.

    That stimulus passed in February, so those 14 conversations where in just the past two months.

    Maybe Specter switched just to keep from having to talk to Biden all the time… 😉

    (BTW, sounds like Rahm Emanuel at work there)

  9. there is plenty of news to be happy about here.

    1.  The Club for Growth is going to spend plenty of money in an effort the make Toomey win and Specter is going to crush him.  I’t’ll be a good election to illustrate just how far out of the mainstream the Republican party is.  

    2.  We would have had to spend millions of dollars to defeat Specter.  That money can now go to defeating other, more rightwing senators, like burr.  

    3.  A message like this from Specter is a goldmine for us mediawise, messagewise,and powerwise.  

    The media is all over this and its all about how this is all about the Republicans moving to the far right.  

    The message of how bi-partisan the Democrats are that they welcome a Republican like Specter into the party and how big tent they are because of it.  This will appeal to independents in a big way, even some of the slightly right of center moderates.  

    Powerwise, assuming he will not sustain a Republican filibuster on somethings, he’ll be a big vote going forward.  

  10. with Eddy Rendell, O, Biden, Specter, maybe Casey, maybe Reid as well all to declare their undying love for Arlen Specter.

    I don’t like this at all. We’re getting someone who ushered more then half of the current arch-conservative members of the court, who signed the letter saying that Franken shouldn’t be seated with the rest of the Republicans, who opposed Obama’s budget, opposes Dawn Johnsen, opposes EFCA cloture, opposes cap and trade, opposes use of reconciliation and at best will be a Ben Nelson/Bayh type of Democrat.

    And this is in a state that Obama won by double digits.

    Is this the best we can do?  

  11. think of that West Wing epsiode where Tom Skerrit played the Idaho Democratic Senator who switched parties and the White House was trying to say it was because he was going to lose as a Democrat?  

  12. but i don’t expect him to renounce everything he’s argued for the past year in his first day as a democrat.

    1. It’s quite interesting, and especially the last part of what Silver said:

      There are both aggravating and mitigating circumstances that may affect Specter’s positioning. On the one hand, he seems to have made the switch more or less unabashedly for electoral reasons, even alluding to the polling in his statement today. This suggests that he’ll be no more and no less Democratic than he can get away with. On the other hand, the parties are now more polarized than they once were, and so crossing the aisle may mean more than it once did. Prior to this party-switch, Specter’s DW-NOMINATE scores had gradually been moving away from the center as it had become harder to stake out a position as a moderate Republican.

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