I know there is some teeth-gnashing and hand-wringing on the Right side of the Blog-o-sphere today over the (not unexpected, unless you are GOP leadership) news that Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania has decided to switch parties and become a member of the Democratic party.

First and foremost, I’m ecstatic about this news. Specter has been a Democrat in everything but name for quite some time anyway.

My feelings are mirrored exactly by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), whose impending endorsement of Toomey might have pushed Specter over the edge. Sen. DeMint said,  “I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don’t have a set of beliefs.”

Exactly. Hell, I’d rather have a single honest Republican who believes in and fights for the principles of limited government, free markets, and free people than to have 99 who don’t.

I’ve been harping on my senator, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) ever since he threw his support behind Specter. Cpt Ed at Hot Air agrees, “You know who I bet feels pretty stupid right now? John Cornyn.”

Ed adds this:

I’m in the good-riddance category here.  Normally I argue for a big tent and the need to woo moderates by focusing on core values.  Specter betrayed those values in his Porkulus vote and cloture cave.  He could have forced Obama, Pelosi, and Reid to start negotiating in good faith with his Republican colleagues, but instead allowed them to shove a bad bill down their throats.

Put me at the head of that “Good-riddance” party. Besides, between the Red Hen Republicans group of Specter, Snowe, and Collins, the Democrats already had their fillibuster proof majority. We’re stuck with this Democratic Congress/President until 2010. Let’s all just bend over at take it hard.

The Other McCain:

Good-bye and good riddance

He is one of those vain, unprincipled creatures — like Robert Byrd or John McCain — who revel in their self-created image of being a “public servant,” an image that is merely an excuse for selfishness and dishonesty.

Let’s all be honest here — Specter didn’t flee the GOP because he thinks the party has “moved too far Right”. He joined the party during the Reagan years. The GOP has done nothing but move to the Left since then.

Specter left the party for the same reason that Carole Keeton McClellan Rylander Strayhorn has flopped between running as a Republican, a Democrat, and an Independent: Political Survival.

Specter and Carole switch parties not because of ideology, but because they are power hungry. And having fed deeply from the public trough, they will do anything to stay in power.

In Specter’s case, he knew he was going to lose the Republican primar to Pat Toomey. So rather than risk being thrown out, he simply decided to switch parties.

The man is a moral coward. I’m glad to be rid of him.

Best case scenario? He gets his ass handed to him in the Democrat primary and ends up unemployed anyway.

______

UPDATE:

Just read this comment over at The New Republic, which is pretty much all that needed to be said:

When a politician switches parties, it’s customary for the party he’s abandoned to denounce him as an unprincipled hack, and the party he’s joined to praise him as a brave convert who’s genuinely seen the light. But I think it’s pretty clear that Specter is an unprincipled hack. If his best odds of keeping his Senate seat lay in joining the Communist party, he’d probably do that.

To be sure, Specter is a real moderate on some issues, but his contortions are so comical that no principled read on his actions is very plausible. Specter favored the Employee Free Choice Act favored by labor, turned against it when he faced a primary challenge, and then abandoned his party altogether when it became clear he couldn’t win his primary. In the meantime, he came out in favor of a Hooverite spending freeze after backing the stimulus bill.