Specter's move is not a seismic shift

Arlen Specter's switch Tuesday to the Democratic Party gives Democrats a bullet-proof majority in the Senate, but let's not make too much of this bit of political theater. Specter has always been an ephemeral independent whose position on any number of issues was difficult to predict. Specter told the public that the Republican Party had abandoned him, not the other way around. It's true that the right wing of the Republican Party has often displayed a suicidal inclination, with its RINO (Republican In Name Only) epithet, but Specter's decision had more to do with electability than with party ideology.

Specter's Republican political base has shifted, making it more difficult for him to survive a conservative challenge in the primary next year. He sees brighter prospects in the 2010 Democratic primary and general election, and he's probably right.

But predictions that the Republicans are facing a permanent minority status or could go the way of the Whigs and the Fusionists are overblown. We've heard such predictions before. The 1964 Lyndon Johnson blowout left Republicans shattered, and the 1974 and 1976 post-Watergate elections led many pundits to predict the end of the Republican Party. But in 1984, it looked like the Democrats who were in danger of extinction.

Gaining a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate will not give Democrats a blank check in Washington. There's still the matter of the electorate who, while shifting toward the left the past four or five years (Republicans can largely thank George W. Bush for that), is still more conservative than most Democrats in Congress. Expect to see some defections from the Democrats' majority on some key votes.

One major test will be the so-called Employee Free Choice Act, which eliminates the secret ballot in union elections and subjects workers to direct coercion. Specter has said he will vote against the top-priority union-backed bill, but don't bet the ranch on it; he has flip-flopped on issues before. When it comes down to the crucial vote, it will be hard for senators elected by secret ballot to deny a secret ballot to workers. And voters, with the exception of union loyalists, will have a hard time understanding what's so bad about a secret ballot.

The news of Specter's party switch was less than a seismic shift. One North Carolina Republican told the News & Observer that it would have been bigger news if Specter had decided to become a Republican.