{"id":6308,"date":"2009-04-28T12:57:17","date_gmt":"2009-04-28T12:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/04\/arlen-specter-is-switching-par.html"},"modified":"2009-04-28T12:57:17","modified_gmt":"2009-04-28T12:57:17","slug":"arlen-specter-is-switching-par","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/04\/arlen-specter-is-switching-par.html","title":{"rendered":"Arlen Specter is switching parties"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2009\/04\/28\/us\/politics\/28caucus.specter.html?_r=1\">The only reason he&#8217;s doing this<\/a> is that he knows he can&#8217;t win in the Republican primary and has a better chance running against the other Democrats in their primary:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When I supported the stimulus package, I knew that it would not be popular with the Republican Party. But, I saw the stimulus as necessary to lessen the risk of a far more serious recession than we are now experiencing.<br \/>\nSince then, I have traveled the State, talked to Republican leaders and office-holders and my supporters and I have carefully examined public opinion. It has become clear to me that the stimulus vote caused a schism which makes our differences irreconcilable. On this state of the record, I am unwilling to have my twenty-nine year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate. I have not represented the Republican Party. I have represented the people of Pennsylvania.<br \/>\nI have decided to run for re-election in 2010 in the Democratic primary.<br \/>\n[&#8230;]<br \/>\nMy change in party affiliation does not mean that I will be a party-line voter any more for the Democrats that I have been for the Republicans. Unlike Senator Jeffords&#8217; switch which changed party control, I will not be an automatic 60th vote for cloture. For example, my position on Employees Free Choice (Card Check) will not change.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The only reason he&#8217;s doing this is that he knows he can&#8217;t win in the Republican primary and has a better chance running against the other Democrats in their primary: When I supported the stimulus package, I knew that it would not be popular with the Republican Party. But, I saw the stimulus as necessary&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[399],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-2"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Arlen Specter is switching parties - Reformed Chicks Blabbing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/04\/arlen-specter-is-switching-par.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Arlen Specter is switching parties - Reformed Chicks Blabbing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The only reason he&#8217;s doing this is that he knows he can&#8217;t win in the Republican primary and has a better chance running against the other Democrats in their primary: When I supported the stimulus package, I knew that it would not be popular with the Republican Party. But, I saw the stimulus as necessary&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/04\/arlen-specter-is-switching-par.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Reformed Chicks Blabbing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-28T12:57:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Susan Johnson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Arlen Specter is switching parties - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/04\/arlen-specter-is-switching-par.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Arlen Specter is switching parties - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","og_description":"The only reason he&#8217;s doing this is that he knows he can&#8217;t win in the Republican primary and has a better chance running against the other Democrats in their primary: When I supported the stimulus package, I knew that it would not be popular with the Republican Party. But, I saw the stimulus as necessary&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/04\/arlen-specter-is-switching-par.html","og_site_name":"Reformed Chicks Blabbing","article_published_time":"2009-04-28T12:57:17+00:00","author":"Susan Johnson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/04\/arlen-specter-is-switching-par.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/04\/arlen-specter-is-switching-par.html","name":"Arlen Specter is switching parties - Reformed Chicks Blabbing","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-04-28T12:57:17+00:00","dateModified":"2009-04-28T12:57:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/b4e41455e911277a4681a65e81271065"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/04\/arlen-specter-is-switching-par.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/04\/arlen-specter-is-switching-par.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/2009\/04\/arlen-specter-is-switching-par.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Arlen Specter is switching parties"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/","name":"Reformed Chicks Blabbing","description":"Politics and current events from a Reformed perspective, by Michele McGinty","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/b4e41455e911277a4681a65e81271065","name":"Susan Johnson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/020\/02041661cf28a19369e083191c05c819x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/020\/02041661cf28a19369e083191c05c819x96.jpg","caption":"Susan Johnson"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/author\/sjohnson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/reformedchicksblabbing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}