Eideard

Thanks, Marc Perkel

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

Senator Arlen Specter’s switch to the Democratic Party appears to be paying off with the polls now showing him ahead in his 2010 re-election race in Pennsylvania.

Last week Specter, 79, abandoned the Republican Party to run for re-election as a Democrat, a move denounced by fellow Republicans but welcomed by the country’s top Democrat, President Barack Obama…

A Quinnipiac University poll found Specter would defeat a conservative Republican who is in the race, Pat Toomey, if the election were held today by 53 percent to 33 percent…

Specter can be expected to be supported in his race by Obama, who carried Pennsylvania decisively in defeating Republican presidential candidate John McCain last November.

I haven’t seen the raw data; so, I wonder if they took a Democrat primary into account? There is – after all – at least one Democrat Congressman who planned on contesting for Specter’s seat before the switch. Joe Sestak.

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission

Senator Arlen Specter’s abrupt move to switch allegiance to President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party was a sharp blow to Republicans and will likely generate more soul-searching for the minority party…

* If he had remained a Republican, he faced a tough challenge for the party’s nomination in Pennsylvania’s 2010 Senate race from conservative Pat Toomey. The moderate Specter beat Toomey in a tight primary in 2004 but faced an even tougher battle this time.

* As far as the Republican base was concerned, his biggest Achilles’ heel was his support for Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus bill. That bill passed the U.S. Congress in February with support from only three Republicans — Specter and Maine senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe.

* Specter’s announcement sharply criticized Republicans, who lost control of the U.S. Congress in 2006, and lost the White House and more seats in Congress in 2008. “I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans,” his statement said…

* Republican strategist John Feehery said Republican leaders in the Senate did all they could to hang on to Specter. More broadly, however, he said: “What it says about the party is they have to make a determination on whether they want to be in the majority or whether they want to be intellectually pure…”

* Republican strategist Scott Reed said: “I always thought Specter would consider switching to become an independent to get re-elected, and it’s too bad that Michael Steele pushed him into the Democrat Party.”

Overdue. And crafty. And bright.