None too soon: Kathleen Sebelius is expected to be confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services in a Senate vote this afternoon. That and the day’s other political news in the TPMDC Morning Roundup.
A couple of smart pieces this morning on the swine flu outbreak: The first is a NYT op-ed by John Barry, whose definitive and eminently readable account of the 1918 pandemic was published in 2004. He traces the arc these new influenza viruses seem to take based on our experience with past outbreaks. The second is a provocative, forward-leaning column by Mike Davis in The Guardian that points the finger at industrial meat production as, if not the source of this particular strain of flu, a fertile petri dish for future swine flu recombinations.
I’ll put this squarely in the ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’ category. But Human Events and TNR both have alerts
Holy crap! Specter’s switching to the Democratic party.
Late Update: Articles with short shelf lives … The Hill: Specter courts conservatives in Pa. rematch
Read Specter’s statement on his party switch.
TPM polling and politics guru Eric Kleefeld is at work on our ‘Why Arlen Switched’ piece, which we’ll have up shortly. The basic issue of Specter’s tough primary fight is pretty clear. But Eric points out a key but less noticed point — the follow-on effects of last year’s Democratic primary and Obama’s candidacy. Democratic registrations swelled in Pennsylvania last year at the expense of Republicans. A lot of that was moderate Republicans who wanted to vote for Obama in the primary or the general. Or for that matter, moderate Republicans who wanted to vote for Hillary. Whatever your interpretation of why they were switching, that left the Republican primary electorate much more conservative than it was in the past, certainly much more than it was when he ran against Toomey the first time in 2004. And Pennsylvania has closed primaries.
In addition to the very daunting poll numbers, this had to figure strongly in Specter’s calculus.
We’ll have more shortly.
Late Update: Needless to say, this is quite a coup for the GOP, likely engineered by Michael Steele as a way to smoke out enemies.
1. Presumably, the way will be cleared for Specter in the Democratic primary. But how thoroughly and quickly. And will there still be a Democratic challenger in the primary, even if the party establishment wants to clear the way.
2. What if anything was promised to Specter to make the switch? I suspect he didn’t need to be promised that much, because he could see he couldn’t make it through the Republican primary. But what happens with his seniority in the Senate, stuff like that?
Eric Kleefeld explains the choice Specter faced and why he really had no choice.
Grover Norquist tells the Washington Independent that it’s not all bad news: Specter had already come out against EFCA (i.e., “card check”) and in his statement this morning he reaffirms his opposition.
It’s easy to have a laugh at Grover’s expense, sort of whistling past the grave. But he’s not all wrong. In retrospect, securing Specter’s opposition to EFCA was a much bigger coup than it seemed at the time. In his heart of hearts, since he supported EFCA in the previous Congress, I’m pretty confident Specter wishes he hadn’t made that promise. But switching now would just seem too craven (it’s one thing to flip-flop but to flip-flop and then flip again …) even on this day which — as cool as it is for Dems — certainly has a decent cravenness quotient.
The real issue I suspect will be cloture. Labor support in Pennsylvania has always been critical for Specter. And this won’t go down well at all. But his wiggle room will be cloture. If he will vote for cloture and let EFCA come to a straight majority vote, I suspect labor supporters will hold their nose and throw in their grudging support.
Of course, you also have to figure into the mix that, unfortunately, since Specter’s announcement earlier in the spring, a number of Dems have come out signaling that they’re at least not inclined to support EFCA this year.