It's a tough call as to whether Senator Specter's primary victory today in the Pennsylvania Republican primary over uber-conservative Rep. Patrick Toomey is a good thing or a bad thing. Some thoughts:
1. I agree with one of the comments posted below, namely that a Specter victory makes it harder for the Democratic candidate to win in the fall (because it would be easier to motivate the Democratic base to take on a religious right wacko). But, as the post notes, I'm not sure I'm up for taking the risk on having that wacko in the Senate if he wins.
2. Specter only won 51-49, which is pretty damn scary. That suggests that Santorum's victory wasn't just a fluke. Pennsylvanians are perfectly capable of electing intolerant far-right Republicans to office, and the more general lesson is that the intolerant right is an ever-growing force to reckon with in the party.
3. What does this mean for Specter's future? Sure, he probably can't stand the far-right wingnuts like Focus on the Family's James Dobson, who flew into the state to help Specter's opponent, and that's good - anything that ticks a Republican off at these bozos is a good thing. But perhaps the lesson Specter learned is that he needs to shore up his far-right Republican base in order to win in the fall, and to keep his seat 6 years from now. Other have noted that Bush stuck with Specter throughout the primary, and that means Specter now owes Bush. Specter is due to take over the Senate Judiciary Committee chairmanship next year if the Republicans retain control of the Senate, and that does not bode well if Bush wins too and Specter thinks he needs to pay the president a few favors on gay marriage amendments, Supreme Court appointments, and more. (It also doesn't bode well for what happens if the religious right forces Congress to vote on the constitutional marriage amendment this year.)
I will say this. I think Specter's victory postponed a very necessary bloodbath, or at least bloodletting, in the Republican party. The party needs to face up to the fact that they created, or at least seriously enabled, a Frankenstein monster when they decided years ago to suck up to the religious right. That monster is now taking over their party, or at least their local party operations. And while a religious right machine might help the Republicans in backward parts of the country where there is no moderate opposition, the vast majority of Americans do not agree with the religious right's agenda. Heck, the majority of evangelicals don't even agree with their leaders' on every issue (a recent poll showed evangelicals were split 50-50 on whether we needed an amendment to the US Constitution banning gay marriage).
As Harold Meyerson wrote in the Washington Post last July:
It's way past time for a prominent Republican to give a Sister Souljah speech. In a period when the United States finds itself threatened by an international network of religious intolerants fuming at modernity and equality, you'd think some GOP notables might step up to condemn the like-minded intolerants in their own ranks -- indeed, atop them. Is there no decent Republican with the guts to note that his party could do better than be led by a rats' nest of bigots?Unfortunately, Specter's victory may have postponed that very necessary speech.
