Will Specter Figure Out That Democrats SUPPORT Working Families, Not Undermine Them The Way His Old Party Does?

First ever "Democrat" Hebiclens has agreed to photograph in full gear

Yesterday David Sirota made the point-- eloquently-- that every incumbent should face a primary challenge. He's especially eager to see vigorous challenges against reactionaries like Arlen Specter (PA) and Michael Bennet (CO) but his "support for as many vigorous primaries as possible may offend Establishment-minded activists, party-first sycophants, and other assorted incumbent-worshiping starfuckers, but that's fine with me because my support is based on the principle that the more democracy and elections and the less entitlement royalty, the better."

MoveOn is being more focused and it's Specter they have their eye on, joining a wide array of progressive organizations resisting the shameful efforts by suspect Insiders Joe Biden and Ed Rendell to clear the Democratic primary field for the Republican-turned-Democraticish Pennsylvania senator. 85% of their members want to see MoveOn consider supporting a Democratic alternative to Specter.

The group expressed concern over Specter’s vote against President Obama’s $3.4 billion budget just one day after defecting to the Democratic Party. MoveOn also cited comments Specter made in an appearance on “Meet the Press” last weekend suggesting he would oppose a public health insurance option that some Democrats would like to see included in any health care reform proposal.

But there might be a silver lining for the longtime Pennsylvania lawmaker: The MoveOn poll found that 90 percent of its members said they would support Specter if he chooses to align more closely with the president’s agenda.

Jane Hamsher spoke right to that silver lining today, pointing to a compromise that seems to have been worked out between labor unions, Specter and Dianne Feinstein. Coming to the realization that he's not going to be back in the Senate if he continues to piss off and completely alienate unions and progressives, Specter seems to have bought into Feinstein's solution to the Employee Free Choice Act "problems."

[Diane Feinstein's] proposal would replace the card-check provision, which would allow workers to unionize if a majority signed authorization cards and strip a company's ability to demand a secret ballot election. "It's a secret ballot that would be mailed in ... just like an absentee ballot. The individual could take it home and mail it in," Feinstein said. If a majority mailed the ballots to the National Labor Relations Board, the NLRB would recognize the union.

That may solve the problem of saving Specter's face (and possibly even his seat) but it puts WalMart's senator, Blanche Lincoln, in a real pickle. And another paid-off shill for Big Business, Ben Nelson (NE) went running to Fox to tell them the compromise is a fool's errand. "You  might think," their report begins, "that statement would come from a Republican, but it’s actually from a Democrat." Well, kinda/sorta. Nelson, who fundamentally opposes assisting working families has taken so much in legalized bribes from the anti-Employee Free Choice forces that he would be embarrassed to vote for it now. He's the worst of only 5 corrupt and reactionary Democrats-- the others being Evan Bayh (IN), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Byron Dorgan (ND), and Max Baucus (MT)-- who have voted more frequently with Republicans on core issues this year than with Democrats. Nelson is the only one who has actually voted more frequently with the Republicans than Specter, who has only been a quasi-Democrat for a week!


UPDATE: Arlen Specter-- The Personification Of Corruption

Usually when we talk about Specter's rampant and horrifying corruption we'll be referring to the millions and millions of dollars he's taken from banksters, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, war contractors and others with special interests business before the Senate. He votes how these people ask him to vote and this alone is enough of a reason to defeat him or send him back to the GOP where he belongs. But there's an even more disgusting and reprehensible form of corruption Adam Green just caught Specter in. Specter has disguised a fund raising website for himself as a website to raise money to fight cancer. When he was called out on it, he changed the website but refuses to give back any of the money he bilked from people who thought they were donating to cancer research but who, unbeknownst to them, wound up donating to a cancer on the body of American democracy.