Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter has announced he will switch parties and run in the 2010 Senatorial elections as a Democrat.  The move could provide Senate Democrats with the 60 vote supermajority necessary to break Senate filibusters if and when Al Franken is seated after the ongoing Minnesota Senatorial race recount court battles.

Specter expressed his views in a statement released today that the GOP had shifted too far to the right, as evidenced by over 200,000 Pennsylvania residents switching their voter registration from Republican to Democrat in 2008.  “I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans,” he said.

Specter undoubtedly finds his political future more in line with the Democrats as well.  The senior Senator from Pennsylvania is up for reelection next year and is trailing badly in polls to conservative Republican challenger Pat Toomey in what was the projected GOP Primary.  A switch to the Democratic side will bring along Specter’s moderate Republican supporters in the General Election while adding the Democratic vote in Pennsylvania, giving Specter a much better chance of prevailing and keeping his Senate seat.  Ironically, for years Toomey has been painting Specter as a RINO - Republican In Name Only - a charge that, while it has turned out to be true, may well be Toomey’s undoing come next November.  Don’t expect great things from Specter for the Democrats.  While his party affiliation may have changed he still retains his anti-labor stances and will undoubtedly try and slow some of the President’s policy initiatives given the chance.  Still this is another tough blow to an already reeling GOP, with the filibuster being one of the very last political weapons in their possession.

LINKS:

NY Times: Specter Switches Parties

WaPo: Arlen Specter to switch parties: Reaction

Politico: Specter’s first party switch