He’s Not Moderate. He’s Random. And Now He’s the Democrats’ Problem

Pity the poor Democrats. In their headlong rush to get a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, they’ve fallen into a Specter-shaped brier patch. I don’t think the Republicans are going to ransom the Democrats out of it, either.

Those of us on the right side of the isle were familiar with the mercurial Specter, and while we didn’t like the fact that the Democrats might (I repeat, might) have obtained a filibuster-proof majority, we can’t say we were sorry to see him go. He drove us crazy.

The word “mercurial” there is a perfect description of Specter and the Democrats have no idea what they’ve gotten in Senator Random. The truth of the matter is, Arlen Specter has been just as likely to vote Democrat as he’s been to vote Republican for the past four years, at least. His lifetime ACU rating is 44.47 out of 100.

That rating is amazingly bad news for Democrats, but to understand why, you need to know a bit about those ratings. The ACU rating is a 0-100 scale, with a perfectly liberal voting record pegged at 0 and a perfectly conservative one at 100. The group picks 25 bills throughout the year, which reflect a “wide variety of issues covering votes on taxes, wasteful government spending, cultural issues, defense and foreign policy”. It then gives each member points based on how they voted for each bill (4 points, is the member voted for all 25, for instance).

At first glance, you might be tempted to believe that a score of 50, give or take a few points, would be the ideal moderate, but that’s not a good way of looking at the scale. A better way, and I’d argue the most accurate way, is to cut the whole thing in half — Democrats get 0-50 and Republicans 51-100. Considering each half of the scale as “belonging” to the party means that a true moderate Republican would have a score anywhere from 65-85. Conversely, a moderate Democrat would have a score between 15-35. Each moderate position would put them right smack in the middle of their party, which is, by the way, where most of America really hangs out. Indeed, that is where you find most of the Senators we tend to regard as moderates.

So who is hanging out in the 40 to 60 range? Well, those folks aren’t moderates; they’re random. By definition, they’re voting against their party about half the time and since the ACU doesn’t load their ratings heavily to favor any one area of policy, it’s not as if they’re opposed only on social or fiscal issues. You might as well flip a coin 25 times as rely on 25 reasonably consistent votes from any of them.

The list of Random Senators is pretty much a Who’s Who of headaches: Olympia Snowe (48), Susan Collins (50), Ben Nelson (48), and Arlen Specter (44). They are the ones the party most has to worry about because, as their records show, there really is no rhyme nor reason to how they will vote when their vote actually matters. They are the ones who require almost constant attention to make sure they haven’t suddenly shifted their vote and the ones who need to be bribed more than usual to get the to vote on their party’s side.

Before Specter’s defection, the Republicans had to deal with three Random Senators. That was great news for Democrats because when it came time for a critical vote, the GOP had to spend a lot more time and effort keeping them in place (and, as we saw during the Stimulus debate, it doesn’t always work). Time spent with Random Senators is time lost in cementing your own people, hitting the airwaves, or trying to pick off a real moderate in the other party.

Now, the Democrats have doubled their trouble. They will, I guarantee you, have to woo Specter almost constantly to make sure he stays with them on a close vote and there’s no guarantee at all that their efforts will pay off. Republicans could have told them that, but with typical Democratic arrogance, they didn’t bother to ask. Or, apparently, do a lot of research about their newest problem child.

Other Posts of Interest:

• Arlen Specter Changes His Nametag but Doesn’t Switch Sides
• Republicans Can Take New York. It Starts with Senator Gilliland. (UPDATED)
• “It is never a bad time for Republicans to speak economic truth…”

Tags: Arlen Specter, Democrats

Category: Our New Democratic Overlords