Welcome to the party, Arlen!

So Arlen Specter is now a Democrat. Who woulda thunk it. Well, lots of people, actually. Rumors have been swirling for months about how he was going to handle the 2010 election. He was facing a primary challenge from Stephen Toomey, of the Club for Growth, and there was every indication that Specter was going to lose. Lots and lots and lots of people left the Pennsylvania GOP over the last year or so, about 200,000. That leaves a hard core of seriously right-wing people, most of whom don't like Specter. His other options were to retire, run as an independent, and become a Democrat. Apparently he didn't want to retire, which makes a certain amount of sense, since there are several senators older than him (he's 79). There are a couple of independents in the Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who calls himself a socialist, and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who calls himself an "independent Democrat." Sanders can afford to be independent because he was a Representative from Vermont for years, so he's a known quantity there, and apparently Vermonters don't take offense when someone calls himself a socialist. Joe Lieberman, of course, is a special case even among special cases.

If Specter had run as an independent, that would have freed up the Democrats to run against him, and he may very well have lost. Becoming a Democrat means he just about locks up that primary.

I have known of Arlen Specter for most of his Senate career, since I went to school in Pennsylvania in the 80's. I once invited him and Carl Levin to a debate at Swarthmore. I invited Specter because he's a former prosecutor and the Senator from Pennsylvania, and I invited Levin because he graduated from Swarthmore. They both declined, but that was mostly because my invitation was not that well put together. I basically just called each of their offices and invited them - I had no idea of the protocol involved.

I agree with Specter on some things, and I'm not a huge fan of his; he seems to waffle on some things. But his heart is occasionally in the right place, and he has been known to stand up for principle.

He'll be in good company in the Northeast; most of the states that border Pennsylvania have Democrat Senators, and I'm sure he has many friends among Democrats in the Senate.

Once Al Franken is seated, Democrats will have 60 seats, enough to prevent filibusters. This is somewhat symbolic; I don't think Specter will actually change too many votes. But his allegiance is now with Obama, and that counts for something.

Welcome to the party of the future, Senator Specter!

Final results from Pennsylvania

The final tally from the Pennsylvania primary:

Clinton: 1,245,911 54.6%
Obama: 1,037,953 45.4%

(hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

I've heard some commentary about the exact percentage. Looks like it is 9.2%, although Andrew Sullivan calls it 9.1%. I'm not going to bother with the exact math. Some people think it's significant whether or not it's 10%, because that would be a double-digit victory.

Please. Calm down, people. Hillary won, and that's that. In two weeks, no one will remember the percentage. Eventually Obama will prevail, and Hillary will thank all of her supporters, inlcuding those in Pennsylvania. And all of the elected Democrats in PA will start rallying around Obama, and most, but not all, of the drama in this particular election will be forgotten. The particular dynamics that defined this primary cannot be ignored, but the important thing at this point is to move on.

Apart from that, there were these tidbits from this election. There was a Republican contest. McCain, of course, won that one. But he only got 72.8% of the vote. Mike Huckabee got 90,304 votes, or 11.4%, and Ron Paul got 126,265 votes, or 15.9%. I think Paul is technically still in the race, so that's not terribly surprising. And Huckabee, of course, has a strong connection with his constituency, and he's got stage presence to burn.

One thing I noticed is that not one of the other Republican nominees got a vote. None for Mitt Romney or Rudy. Or Fred Thompson or any of assorted other wannabes. Just Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee. Many Democrats are legitimately worried about an intra-party conflict. But the split within the Republican party is alive and well, just currently below the surface. McCain has nomination, but he still doesn't have the love from all of his fellow Republicans. More than a quarter spoke their minds and expressed their displeasure with the establishment candidate.

What's interesting about Paul and Huckabee is that they are both grass-roots phenomena. Romney, Rudy, and Thompson were all media darlings at some point during the campaign, garnering lots of attention. Now that they're gone, they have absolutely no constituency left. But Huckabee and Paul are still winning significant chunks of the population, long after either of them were the subject of any kind of media attention. The impact that each of them has had will last well past November.

Commentary on Pennsylvania

So Hillary won the Pennsylvania Democratic primary. Congratulations to her. I am reminded, watching her win, that she is running as hard and as long as she is because she honestly believes that she is much better qualified to be President and change this country than Obama. It's not unreasonable on her part. She is smart, confident, competent, etc. And there is nothing that will convince her otherwise, until Obama wins. Lots of people are concerned that this race is causing rifts in the Democratic Party. I am somewhat concerned about that, but not so much that I would ask Hillary to quit. Staying in this race is a decision for her alone to make.

In the meantime, I can see some positives for her staying in the race. First, she is making Obama a better campaigner. Second, if and when Obama wins, he will be able to claim that he won the race fair and square. Hillary started out this race with every possible advantage. It was hers to lose, and it looks like she will. Obama has raised more money, but that's because more people want to give money to him. That's part of the democratic process. And the fact that the race is still competitive is inspiring lots and lots of people to get involved, not just by voting but by volunteering, which is all good. It's also keeping the conversation about the election going, and that's also good.

As for the meaning of this specific primary, I think Josh Marshall said it best:

I'd say the real story is that this leaves us basically where we were. It was a decisive win for Hillary but that was the expectation. Going into tonight I think the dividing line was about 8 points. Closer than that and the story would have been that Obama didn't win but closed the margin (which is how it looked early in the evening). A bigger margin than that and the story would be that Hillary got her big victory. So the 10 point spread is close to the dividing line but on Hillary's side of it. There's a lot of crowing from Hillary's campaign tonight about a shift in momentum and doubts about Obama. Tomorrow there will be a lot of chatter from Obama's campaign that none of that really matters because of the reality of the delegate numbers which won't change much.

Meanwhile, behind the numbers, there was some movement for Obama in some key demographic groups. Check out the numbers from the numbers from Kos. In just about every demographic, Obama made gains from Ohio, which is a very similar state. Kos also has a great breakdown of why, in terms of campaign strategies and tactics, Obama lost. Basically, it was inevitable, but he did as well as he could. The state political machine was against him. That's gonna hurt.

And I think the party will unite behind the nominee. Right now, a lot of Hillary supporters are unhappy that she is behind, and some of them are not happy about the attacks on her. But as soon as a nominee is chosen, and, assuming it's Obama, Hillary will start to campaign for him, and her supporters will follow her. And once they start listening to him as the Democratic candidate, rather than as an opponent in the Democratic primary, they will start to be inspired. And the depth of the anti-Republican furor cannot be underestimated. This is from yesterday's LA Times, about an elderly couple in rural Pennsylvania (the writer's parents). This is the husband:

In the 1980s, he was a Reagan Republican. Now, he told me, "I don't care if they nominate a one-armed orangutan, I'm voting for the Democrat."

Obama constantly reminds us that change is hard. It is also weird.

Sometimes it feels good to be bitter

Obama was at a rally in Erie, PA, today. 3,000 people crammed into an auditorium, and experienced the usual Obama-mania. The questions were substantive - NOT the kind on ABC! And then the issue of being bitter came up:

One man stood up and said, "We have lost a lot of jobs here in Erie, and it's quite all right with us if you tell people that we are bitter." That brought the whole crowd to their feet in applause once again, and Obama said, "That's the biggest response we've had all day!"

What few pundits these days seem to understand is that what most people want from politicians isn't feel-good platitudes, but honesty. It's why John McCain claims to be a practitioner of "straight talk." You don't want a doctor to lie to you about your condition. If you're feeling sick, you know it, and you want a cure, even if it hurts. If you're out of a job, you know life sucks. If a politician says "guess what, these people think life sucks when you don't have a job," then that's called empathy.