send to a friend | print | comment

More on Sestak and Sotomayor

As predicted here, Congressman Joe Sestak (D-7) will indeed challenge Arlen Specter for the Democratic nomination. A further prediction: Sestak will win, or at the very least come so close that Specter will be seriously weakened. Either way, I still believe this is Arlen’s last term in the Senate, although I know I am in the minority on this.

One reason for Specter’s likely difficulty is that the Democratic Party, despite rhetorical moves to the “center,” continues to drift ever leftward. The choice of Sonia Sotamayor, which almost nobody believes was driven by anything other than identity politics, is an example of this. A party that feels confident enough to make a choice like this probably doesn’t feel the need to run an octogenarian Republican as its Senatorial candidate, whatever the “insiders” in Washington and Harrisburg say now.

By the way, that the Republicans are treading much too softly on the Sotamayor nomination. The idea that there is some swing Hispanic vote that will track how individual Senators voted is ridiculous. Can you tell me how anyone voted on any previous nomination, other than that Specter was always an opportunist?) Whatever strength the GOP has among Hispanics is based on its conservative stands on social issues which Sotomayor is anathema to.

Indeed, if the GOP will not fight a liberal judicial candidate—and one who was chosen for blatantly political reasons at that—it’s hard to see exactly what they would fight, or what exactly they stand for, at all.

May 27, 2009 at 6:56 pm

--Michael Livingston

Tags: Arlen Specter, Joe Sestak, Sonia Sotomayor

comments

comments [0] | post a comment