RIP GOP?

I've been thinking a lot about Arlen Specter since reading yesterday of his decision to leave the Republican party.

My initial reaction was one of shock. (As an aside, I really love Twitter.)

Then, of course, the experts started to weigh in, saying that it was a craven political move designed to help him gain re-election in 2010, since he was likely to lose the Republican primary to a more garden-variety conservative.

At least that's what the experts on the right had to say. The experts on the left held the decision up as further evidence that the Republican party is out of touch and that there is no room in the party for moderation or dissent of any kind. I guess "expert" should be in quotes there. Well, the better word is "pundit" at any rate. (As another aside, I tried to watch five minutes of Rachel Maddow's show last night and couldn't do it. MSNBC ruined her by giving her her very own show. I really used to like her. Now she's nearly as insufferable as Olbermann and O'Reilly.)

See, this is why I like Twitter so much. Asides can be posted as whole other thoughts. I have a lot of asides.

Being a moderate, I tend to think it's a little of both. Obviously, someone who has been a Republican for a very long time (even if he was a Democrat before that) doesn't just suddenly get fed up with the party and leave. He can say the party left him all he wants. The fact remains that it's been leaving him for a long time, so why is it only a problem now? I would say that the Republican party of 2009 isn't that different from the Republican party of 1999, so why not then instead of now. The cynical (and probably correct) answer is that now it benefits him greatly to leave, whereas before it didn't.

Not that I object to Specter giving into political expediency. He is, after all, a politician. He must be a pretty damn good one to have survived in the strange politics of Pennsylvania for so long. In fact, I wonder whether Specter's switch will make him the more liberal Democratic senator from Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania's other senator, Democrat Bob Casey, is actually pretty conservative. (Yet another aside: Casey is proof of my theory that abortion is still the linchpin issue in this country and separates liberal from conservative for many people. By this definition, Specter would definitely be more liberal: he is pro-choice and Casey is pro-life.)

I do think that this decision was more a result of Specter's political need rather than any major, untenable change in the party as a whole. True, there was a conservative Republican running against Specter in the primary and if the party really supported him full force, this wouldn't have been a problem. It's not just the Republican party that does this, though. Remember Joe Lieberman? (I mean, Joe Lieberman before he backed McCain, when he was opposed in the Democratic primary and became an independent so that he could keep his seat. Joe proves a corollary to my theory: in most instances, support for the Iraq war is enough to make one a conservative.)

Still, even though I don't really blame the party for this all that much, I can't help but wonder if what the liberal pundits - and more than a few of the conservative ones - say is true: is the Republican party as we know it, as a force in American politics capable of winning elections, dead?

I think it just might be.

This makes me sad, for some strange reason. Though I don't associate with a political party, and though my very conservative family is convinced I'm quite liberal, if I were forced to choose from one of the two major parties, I would pick the Republican one. It's not for any one view that the espouse. It's just what I see myself as, at the end of the day, even though many Republicans and their supporters infuriate me greatly. I think it may just be that I grew up identifying as a Republican, and it's hard to let that kind of thing go. Also, as much as I don't like the Republicans, I tend to not like the Democrats just a little bit more.

I guess I shouldn't be sad, though. I should probably welcome this development, as someone who would like to identify as a Republican but just can't right now, given the state of the party. I do believe that we need more parties in this country to reflect the diversity of political belief - then perhaps Specter could find a party of his own rather than hopping back and forth between the two major ones - but I don't want to join any of those. I really have a heart for politics - if I had it to do over again, and I could pick a party to go to work for, I would really like to be a political staffer, I think. Right now, I just don't have a party. I don't think I could ever be a Democrat, so the Republicans are my only hope.

I won't be holding my breath, though. Change, when it comes, will probably not be the kind I'm looking for.