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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Specters Switch was to Try and Save his Political Career

Sen. Arlen Specter’s jilted former party is pushing the talking point that his switch to the Democratic Party is “an act of self-preservation.”

“[H]is decision ... was a personal decision, limited to his Republican primary prospects in Pennsylvania. Nothing more and nothing less,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Tex., the chairman of the National Senatorial Congressional Committee.

Not to buy into the spin, but they’re actually fairly accurate. And Specter is fully aware of that fact.

“I have traveled the state and surveyed the sentiments of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania and public opinion polls, observed other public opinion polls and have found that the prospects for
winning a Republican primary are bleak,” Specter told reporters on Capitol Hill this afternoon.

Specter, who squeaked past an intraparty challenge from former U.S. Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., in 2004, was facing the conservative Toomey again. And recent polls showed him being trounced by Toomey in the Republican primary next year. - CBS News Story

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