Huffington Post: Specter Faces Price of Betrayal: Angry Dems, Workers, Primary Challenge

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-levine/specter-faces-price-of-be_b_200555.html

Art Levine

Contributing editor of The Washington Monthly

Sen. Arlen Specter's political deathbed conversion to the Democratic Party isn't turning out so well after all. He now finds himself isolated from his new Democratic colleagues , branded as a turncoat who won't support key parts of Obama's agenda, a betrayer of his longtime union supporters over the Employee Free Choice Act -- and he's been stripped of his seniority on committees. Real Clear Politics sums it up:

The White House's "full support." The backing of Senate leadership. The promise to retain his rank. Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter appeared to gain a new political world for leaving the party that brought him to national politics. One week later, that world is gone.


Specter now stands alone. Stripped of his rank by Democrats. Scorned by Republicans. Specter's flash of strength has turned to weakness.


That weakness was thrown into stark relief Wednesday night, as Rep. Joe Sestak said in an interview that he was "very seriously" considering challenging Specter in the Democratic primary. There was a renewed energy to Sestak, repeating the phrase "very seriously" as he drove from Washington DC to Pittsburgh.


It was only last week that Sestak appeared blindsided. "You know," Sestak told MSNBC's Chris Matthews Friday with a pang of resignation, "I was thinking of getting in. And I haven't made my final decision."

For many Democratic voters, Specter's flip-flop on the Employee Free Choice Act he once co-sponsored appears to be fueling outrage from union members and their progressive allies. These include not just civil rights organizations, environmentalists and others but netroot activists who met today at AFL-CIO headquarters, vowing to supplement the unions' own grass-roots and online organizing with added efforts from their ranks.

FULL story at link.

[FLAprogressive]

1. go Joe!

[NNN0LHI]

2. And he could have had it all if he had just played his cards right

[aquart]

3. Bone-headed remark after bone-headed remark.

Mini-strokes? What a mess he made.

[Cha]

4. What an idiot to vote

against Dem causes the minute you make the big switch and tell Prez Obama "I'm a loyal Democrat" in the call and then turn around and say you said no such thing.