Mr. Magic Bullet Makes his Biggest Redirection

Senator Arlen Spector,

the man behind the "Magic Bullet Theory" to explain how a single bullet caused all of the non-fatal wounds in JFK and John Connally,

the man who voted "Not Proven" in the impeachment proceedings for President Bill Clinton,

the man who has long been the most moderate Republican member of the Senate and who has often said he is "personally opposed to abortion", but is "a supporter of a woman's right to choose"

on Tuesday announced that he was switching from from the Republican to Democratic party. This is not the first time Arlen has switched parties. In 1965, Arlen Specter as a registered Democrat ran for District Attorney on the Republican ticket as a registered Democrat. He easily beat incumbent Jim Crumlish, and then subsequently changed his registration to Republican.

This gives the Democrats 57 officially registered members of the Senate as well as 2 Independents who caucus with them. Al Franken now is the magic 60th "Democrat" and when he is seated (whenever Norm Coleman faces reality)

Was this a personal survival tactic? Yes, and Arlen is pretty forthcoming about that. He has said a couple of times that he is "Unwilling to subject my 29 years in the senate to the Republican primary." He further stated that,"I have not represented the Republican party, I have represented the people of Pennsylvania. I will not be an automatic 60th vote for the Democrats as there are issues that I continue to see differently."

So what are the short and long term effects of this change? Well, Arlen will probably vote about the same as if he had been a Republican with one very significant difference. He will not be put in the position of having to take political stands to improve his chances to win the Republican nomination for Pennsylvania senator in 2010. With over 200,000 PA Republicans changing party registration during the run-up to the 2008 Presidential election, the PA Republican party is on the whole a lot more conservative than in was in 2006 when Arlen Spector narrowly won renomination (51% - 49%) over Republican congressman Pat Toomey who has announced he is running in 2010 and was showing a large lead over Spector in early polls.

Spector may wind up voting with Dems to invoke cloture on issues and then vote against them. Spector doesn't like the concept of the filibuster enabling a minority to prevent an issue from coming to a vote and now he doesn't have to worry about that effecting his political career. Spector will have the full support of the Democratic party and President Obama in his 2010 re-election bid which bodes very well for him.