What Big Eyes You Have Senator

Hang the "I Told You So" banner and let's have a party. Sen. Spector has left the building.

The guest list should include Rudy Giuliani, President Bush, Rick Santorum, John Cornyn and most of the GOP who went to bat multiple times for Spector. "He a good guy, we need him on our side" they said. It was just enough to keep him in office.

I'm not sad to see the switch Spector has made. In fact, I'm glad the sheepskin suit has finally fallen off the wolf after all these years. It was tattered and torn the last time Spector faced Pat Toomey in an election. Mr. Toomey lost to Mr. Specter in 2004 by less than 2 percent of the vote.

Desperate men do desperate things. Alren Spector is such a man. A look at his record shows consistent support for abortion rights, his blocking of Judge Robert Bork from a seat on the Supreme Court, as well as his stimulus vote. He has broken with the GOP about 43 percent of the time, according to Congressional Quarterly. All this has not played well with republican voters.

Yet democrats have been furious with him too, notably for his support for Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court and his related interrogation of Anita F. Hill, who had accused Mr. Thomas of sexual harassment.

This puts Mr. Toomey in a great position. He has defeated Spector before the first vote was cast. If the last election was not recognized as a warning shot across the bow of the S.S. Spector, then I don't know what to tell you Arlen.

The only bad part in all of this is the amount of crow that will be consumed at the GOP buffet. Not to mention handing Democrats a possible 60th vote and the power to break Senate filibusters as they try to advance the Obama agenda.

“I’m not prepared to have my 29-year record in the United States Senate decided by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate, not prepared to have that record decided by that jury,” Mr. Specter said. Excuse me Senator, but the "jury" are the people who elected you and we have a right to pass judgement with our vote. How dare he decide not to hold himself accountable to the voters who put him in office.

“I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans,” Spector said in his statement. Let me translate: I did the math and I'm about to get my butt handed to me and I don't like it one bit. I'm taking my ball and going to play with the other team.

Filibusters be dammed, democrats can have Spector as far as I'm concerned. Maybe Arlen and Olympia Snow could share a U-Haul????