Specter Staring at “Near Fatal” Re-Election Numbers – Political Wire (10/14/09):
A new Susquehanna Polling and Research survey finds that only 31% of Pennsylvania voters believe Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) should be re-elected, and 59% believe it’s time to give someone else a chance.
Said pollster Jim Lee: “When I see a re-elect in the low 30s, that’s … near fatal.”
Obama’s platinum political judgment dictates that David Paterson must be sacrificed in the NY-Gov race because he can’t overcome bad poll numbers, but Obama has thrown the full weight of the White House and the Democratic Party behind a lifelong Republican who switched parties because he would have lost the PA primary. Well, guess what? Now he’ll win the primary (against an actual Democrat) due to fundraising and and support from the party, and lose the general to…the same guy who would have beaten him in a Republican primary, Pat Toomey. And Toomey would enter the Senate as one of the 5 most conservative members of the Republican caucus, and he’ll do it as the Senator from Pennsylvania. Awesome.
Beyond the 2010 election is the calculation that Obama and the Senate Democratic leadership made that it was important to have Specter become a Democrat now in exchange for preservation of seniority and support in the PA primary and general elections. The only reason to do this (other than fluffing Obama’s ego) was to get to the magical 60 seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. But Democrats have shown by their actions (not enforcing party discipline even just on a cloture vote) that 60 is just another number. Obama has important nominees languishing pending confirmation votes, and of course there is the small matter of health care reform.
Taken together with Obama’s counterproductive meddling in the Colorado and New York Senate primaries, these hamfisted forays are simply displays of terrible political judgment. And worse, even the best case scenario (Dems holding all of these seats) makes it significantly harder to produce progressive legislation.
But Obama is liberal like you, right?