Was Specter Joking that He Wants Coleman to Win So as to Ensure One Jewish Republican in the Senate? And Do You Care?

 by Teh Nutroots | Right.  First, let's acknowledge that there's a possibility, as Eric Kleefeld remarks, that he might have been joking.  Here's the remark in context.  The New York Times released the full interview which shows the context of Specter's remarks.  Via Teagan Goddard:

With your departure from the Republican Party, there are no more Jewish Republicans in the Senate. Do you care about that?
I sure do. There's still time for the Minnesota courts to do justice and declare Norm Coleman the winner.

Which seems about as likely at this point as Jerry Seinfeld's joining the Senate.
Well, it was about as likely as my becoming a Democrat.

Kleefeld says he's got a call in to Specter's office.  (TPM) 

That said, I don't much care whether it was a joke or not.  I didn't even know Specter and Coleman are Jewish; and nor does it matter to me.   Frankly, Wonkette pretty much sums up my thinking on this point:

Libtards are going nuts about how Arlen Specter isn’t saying everything the Democratic leadership wants him to say. But who gives a shit what Arlen Specter says about Norm Coleman? Party hacks, everywhere.

I am a proud libtard and I personally don't care what Specter thinks, says, or wants, or what he says he wants, with or without regard to whether he was serious or not at all serious in saying what he said about Coleman.  .

  Josh Marshall, in a piece called Just Too Cocky, writes:

He's got an ambitious (and there's nothing wrong with that) and aggressive potential opponent in Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA). And even more important than that he's got a critical constituency, organized labor, visibly warming to opposing him in next year's Democratic primary. (Remember a couple key points: Labor is a big deal in Pennsylvania and Specter's in the past always relied on strong labor backing.)...What's most striking about this whole turn of events though is that if Specter is in any real trouble it is a predicament entirely of his own making, an unforced error of almost galactic proportions....

[T]here was some political logic to Specter not moving too quickly or fulsomely to embrace Democratic positions, especially since he'd spent the last few months tacking hard to the right. But what we've seen over the last week goes way, way beyond anything like that. He's dug in his heels opposing EFCA, said he'd oppose a key Obama DOJ appointee, staked out a surprisingly right-leaning (for him) position on health care reform and gone way past the first day bromides in signaling he won't have any partisan attachment at all to his new political party. His line about not being a 'loyal' Democrat, after he apparently said just the opposite to President Obama, seems like a high profile diss of the president..... After watching the last week I get the sense he's just too cocky for his own good.   (TPM)

Atrios writes, in re: the cockiness of Specter:

Some of that is his personality. Some of that is the mental disorder that generally sets in after being a senator for a few decades. The other thing is that he's been remarkably successful at doing what he wants while engaging in enough bullshit to con the Philadelphia Inquirer editorial board every 6 in years into believing his "moderate" bullshit.

The only way to get him to do the right thing is to have a credible primary challenger in the wings, whether that's Specter Sestak or someone else.

At Obsidian Wings, Publius writes:

[T[he upshot is that Specter is (uncharacteristically) making some enormous political errors by immediately opposing various Democratic positions so loudly.  I don’t really understand his thinking.  There’s no logic to it – it’s just bad politics, and it could cost him his seat...It’s worth remembering how little leverage Specter has.  He provided the Dems with a great PR coup, but that’s about all he could credibly offer.  He was going to get crushed in the GOP primary regardless of how he voted.  And if he kept trying to appease the GOP base with his anti-Obama votes, he’d lose the general.  Unlike Jeffords, he just didn’t bring much to the table – and the Dems are saving his hide by taking him in.

One would hope that the Democratic leadership and White House would demand a bit more in a transaction with such asymmetrical benefits.  But even if they don't, the ultimate decision - as Marshall explained - belongs not to the leadership but to the Democratic voters of Pennsylvania (where labor is very powerful).  If Specter’s top priority over the next few months is supporting GOP preferences on Meet the Press, there’s no reason PA Democrats should tolerate that.

Eric Kleefeld at TPM says:

Memo to Sen. Arlen Specter (RD-PA): You're supposed to be a Democrat now...

So what exactly are the Dems getting out of this whole deal?

Late Update: NRSC press secretary Amber Wilkerson gives us this comment: "First he voted against President Obama's budget, then he said he wouldn't be a loyal Democrat, now he wants Norm Coleman to win. We've never agreed so much with Arlen Specter. You just have to wonder whether Joe Sestak agrees with the positions of his fellow Pennsylvania Democrat?

Centrist Joe Gandelman muses:  "Specter might need all the friends he can get — particularly in his “new” party....But he’s not acting as if he thinks he does."

He's like a high school kid who broke up with the head cheerleader when he found out she was going with someone else to the Homecoming dance, then started dating her deadliest rival just to teach her a lesson.  Now he spends all his time strutting up and down between the two of them to show how goddam independent he is, while the ex points and laughs and the other smiles tightly, curls a lock of hair round her finger, and rolls her eyes.  There's only one way this is going to go unless something changes. 

Thers says, he says:

You know, contra the leading lights of Greater Wingnuttia, it's entirely possible that Pennsylvania Republicans, crazy as they are, by and large don't like Arlen Specter not because he didn't Hew Closely Enough to Conservative Principles, but because he's just overall kind of a douchebag.

Last word to Markos, who writes:

[H]is arrogance is overwhelming, his obvious dislike for Democrats palpable. He's clearly telling us, "I switched to avoid Toomey, not deal with you fucks." And since Obama has clearly promised him support, come hell or high water (no matter how he little support or loyalty he delivers in return), he feels like he can shit on anyone with impunity.

Personally, I don't want Specter around in 2011. So I want him to keep shitting on Dems....I want him to keep pretending that he's god's gift to the Senate. Because unlike Connecticut, there's no sore-loser option if he gets knocked off in the primary. And I'll take a real Democrat in that seat over that unprincipled turd of a man that is Specter.

So Arlen, please keep it up.

More discussion here....

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