GOP Self-Inflicts Wound

By Keith R. Schmitz

You bet Arlen Specter jumped the GOP for political reasons. Conservative Congressman Pat Toomey was ahead of him by at least 20 points in the polling, and it looked for certain Specter would not survive the primary.

But the primary is the primary presented for the inspection, as Rod Serling would say, of an increasingly right wing party.

A growing segment of not only Pennsylvania but of the rest of the USA is walking away from the policies which have proven to be disastrous for the country and for individuals smart enough to recognize when they are being smacked around by the system.

But why did the GOP make it so easy for Specter? This is a party that has gone away from practicality and now thinks politics is some rite of purity. For all of our faults, many Democrats have become cognizant of what the average thinks like, not supposed to think like.

Paul Ryan this morning on Scarborough was decrying the Democrats for being far left. But when you are so far to the opposite side as he is and so many in the GOP, everyone looks like a Red.

Specter wants health care reform. The GOP is deluded into thinking we have the best health care system in the world and would do all they could in the Senate to block it or water it down. Now it appears we can get that reform without the taint of reconiliation, but a plan voted by the full Senate.

Meanwhile, the GOP has gone for Stalinistic purges. Just ask Mary Panzer. It wasn't too long ago when during the state GOP convention that the right wing blogs were agog when the party came out and said they would only support only true conservatives.

It's their party, but now this kind of hubris has led to today's news.

But it happens. The GOP was once riding high, but gravity always reminds you where the ground is.

The Democrats of course could screw up, but that won't happen any time soon. To their benefit the GOP is still intoxicated with sophomoric economic fantasy that the cushion is there if the Democrats stumble.

Happy 100 Days Barack Obama.

Balkanization Update -- Now that Arlen Specter has come out as a Democrat, GOP Party Leader Rush Limbaugh has told John McCain and his daughter Meghan to leave as well. Better listen!