Megan McArdle reacts to the Specter switch:
Instant analysis: this is probably not a good sign for the future of the Republican party, not because Arlen Specter is so crucial to its ideological or political integrity, but simply because he’s a seasoned politician from a swing state, and what does he know that other Republicans don’t?
On the other hand, I remember when that savvy political prognosticator, Jim Jeffords, sealed the doom of the Republican Party in the Senate. I hope that Specter has better sense than Jeffords in titling his next self-serving autobiography.
I think that if you look back at the elections of 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008 you’ll see that Jeffords and those predicting GOP doom in the summer of 2001 missed was not any incipient political trend, but 9/11. It’s clear that 9/11 and Bush’s popular response to 9/11 gave his party a big boost. But more broadly, Jeffords’ defection really did augur a significant narrowing of the GOP.
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