Arlen Specter has largely been quiet since he was sent packing back to Philadelphia by Democratic voters in 2010. While we can at least take some comfort that he’s not blaming it all on Bush as most of his new old party leaders tend to do, now that he is speaking out, he is blaming Obama for his loss. That’s right, it’s not the “party & ideological flip to save my job that I feel entitled to on the taxpayer’s dime” that rubbed Democrats the wrong way. It’s not the fact that his opponent, Joe Sestak, ran as a hardcore liberal in a state where those on the left felt threatened by a shift to the right on many other political fronts. It’s Obama’s fault.
Should President Obama dump Joe Biden as his running mate and replace him with Hillary Clinton?
Arlen Specter was asked that hot-potato question, circulating in some Democratic circles, in a meeting Tuesday with The Inquirer editorial board.
His answer showed that the former 30-year senator hasn’t lost his knack for blunt talk – nor, perhaps, his bitterness over what he feels were slights from Obama during his failed 2010 Senate campaign.
He suggested maybe Obama is the one who should be dumped.
“That’s the second best alternative,” he said of replacing Biden. “A better alternative is to make Hillary the [presidential] nominee. As long as we’re talking about dumping, let’s go to the core problem.”
He complains that Obama flew over Pennsylvania twice in 2010 without stopping to campaign with Specter. I’m just amazed at how Specter can’t see how many on the left would have only held that against Obama as playing politics as usual with a candidate who could not be trusted to carry the flag for the progressive agenda. In a state with closed primaries where only the party faithful can vote to select a candidate for the general election, Specter couldn’t find too many friends on either side of the aisle. It wasn’t because he was some kind of true moderate. Honestly, most people just didn’t think he could be trusted based on his own actions that would throw one party and ideology under the bus so quickly – twice in his career, I might add.
Arlen was, and remains, a true weasel. If the Communist Party offered Specter the best path to political power, he’d be spewing Marx and Engels.
My suspicion was that the only thing that Specter truly believed in was that he should be in charge. (Sort of like the soon-to-be GOP nominee.)
Bitter, you should file suit. How anyone could mistake Arlen Specter for you is beyond me.
Haha! That made me crack up, Clayton! :)
Now that, right there, was incredibly funny!!
Clayton beat me to it.
Yes, it shouldn’t be too hard to distinguish you, Bitter, from Mr. Specter.
Actually, reading the headline, my first thought was that Arlen Specter called Bitter by phone. Then I read the rest, and thought he was accused of being a young female gun rights blogger.
There is an amusing book by a NYC advertising executive, Jerry Della Femina, called “From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor”. I read this book when I was quite young (it was a garage sale find).
In it, he tells a story about being hired to do campaign advertising for Arlen Specter. He asks the staff, “When do I get to meet Mr. Specter?” They tell him, “You don’t.” He says, “Okay. What is Arlen Specter for?” They say, “Arlen Specter is for getting elected.” He says, “Okay. What is Arlen Specter against?” They say, “Arlen Specter is against losing.”
I’ve always associated that story with Mr. Specter; the perfect example of a candidate who stood for nothing except his own self-interest.