Pennsylvania's own Arlen Specter |
GLENN: Okay, here's Arlen Specter. Now, how did Arlen Specter used to vote, Stu?
STU: Well
GLENN: Oh, he's got it right here.
STU: I've got it right here. Arlen Specter was, as you remember him and frustrating to conservatives, a Republican that tended to vote with Democrats more often than Republicans.
GLENN: Yes.
STU: Which was our problem with him initially.
GLENN: But it wasn't like overwhelming. It was just on key issues if I'm not mistaken.
STU: These are taken on the contentious votes. So not, you know, the sort of
GLENN: Yeah.
STU: You know, the votes that don't mean anything.
GLENN: Yeah.
STU: These are the contentious votes. Now, this is while he was a Republican before this year, before an important Quinnipiac poll would show him behind in the primary, the Republican primary. So his normal voting was 58%. With the Democrats, he's a Republican, voting with the Democrats 58% of the time.
GLENN: Now do we have the audio of how he said, "I'm not going to change." Do we have that audio?
STU: Yes, we do.
GLENN: Go ahead. Play the audio here.
VOICE: I will not be changing my own personal independence or my own approach to individual issues. I will not be leaving an automatic 60th vote. I know some of the media stories since my statement was released this morning are taking a look at the 60th vote and I will not be an automatic 60th vote. And I will illustrate that by my position on employees choice, also known as card check. I think it is a bad deal and I'm opposed to it and would not vote to
GLENN: Okay, so what he's saying here I think we got it. What he's saying here is he's not going to be a 60th vote.
PAT: He is not going to be an automatic vote.
GLENN: He won't be an automatic vote. He is not going to change didn't he say he is not going to change the way he votes?
PAT: Not going to change the way I vote.
GLENN: Or he is not going to change his viewpoints.
PAT: None of my viewpoints.
GLENN: Don't count him in.
PAT: I am the same maverick, which I have always been. My friend, John McCain says.
GLENN: All right.
STU: So follow this time line. The beginning of the year he's voting 58% with the Democrats as a Republican.
GLENN: 58%, 58% as a Republican.
PAT: That sounds about right, 58%.
STU: But then he gets Pat Toomey is going to enter the race, there is a big poll that comes out where he is 12 points behind Toomey. So he is a Republican now having a challenge from the right. In fact, a lot more Republican. He goes from 58% agreeing with the Democrats down to 16%.
PAT: That's absolute coincidence, absolute coincidence. It just happened to be better Republican.
STU: Exactly. Thank you, Arlen. So then he makes this speech saying he's not going to just all of a sudden change and become a
GLENN: 68 to 16 in the other direction.
STU: Right.
GLENN: But then when the polls don't change, he decides to jump ship.
STU: Right. And he decides to become a Democrat. So he goes from 16% voting with the Democrats to 69%.
PAT: Another flabbergasting coincidence. There's liable to be some Democratic bills that came along that I happen to be in favor of. That's all that is.
GLENN: That's all that is.
PAT: Conspiracy theory, helicopter, oh, my God.
GLENN: No, there's no helicopter. Those are the polls shifting so fast.
STU: But, of course, that's not the end of the story.
GLENN: No.
STU: Because Arlen Specter goes over to the Democratic Party and now he's being challenged from the left. Someone supposedly more liberal than him.
GLENN: So he goes more left.
STU: So he goes even more left. So he goes from 69% voting with the Democrats now to 97%.
PAT: What did I tell you? I said I wasn't going to be automatic.
GLENN: (Laughing).
PAT: That's not automatic, is it?