Barb, I appreciate the effort to be non political about it, but I have to disagree with you. Specter has been a moderate for a long time and has taken many politically unpopular positions over his career. In 2004, the party went to bat for him and helped defeat a primary challenger who was much more in line with what is in the republican party platform. There was always a very vocal minority carping about his social positions, but the party stood by him and helped him get re-elected.

In 2009, he played a critical role in allowing the democrats to pass the spendulus without ever giving anybody a chance to read the bill. He, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe...all "moderate" republicans helped the democrats pass the largest spending bill ever put through congress without even giving anybody a chance to read it before they voted, much less a chance to vote for amendments or changes. He, Snowe, and Collins can carp all they want about how social conservatives are "shrinking the republican tent" (and I agree with them on that issue), but the reason Specter was going to be defeated in the primary was that he abandoned the FISCAL conservatives and voted for massive government spending.

Specter, Snowe, and Collins are on the outs with the GOP, not over social positions...but because they are helping the democrats spend like drunken sailors. We could take it when they were social liberals and fiscal conservatives, but you can't be fiscally AND socially liberal and still want to call yourself a republican.

The reality is that Specter had a really sweet deal being the swing vote the democrats needed. He could play both sides of the aisle and get everything he wanted and more. Then reality struck home when he realized he wasn't going to get re-elected running as a republican, and he jumped ship. Getting re-elected is the most important thing to him, so he doesn't really care if he has to do it as a democrat or a republican. If you want to know more about his character, go look up what he said about Jim Jeffords when he switched. Specter was trying to get the practice banned when that happened. 6 weeks ago, he said that keeping 41 votes in the minority was critical as acheck against unlimited power. 2 weeks ago he said he would never change parties. Now look what he has done. Is that the kind of man you would want representing you?

Political expediency at its best...