With Spector's Switch to Dems, GOP Stares Into the Abyss

This is the kind of thing that happens to a self-destructive party -- it loses its ability to filibuster the Senate when an old respected moderate like Pennsylvania's Arlen Spector decides to switch parties. It was partially an act of political survival, of course, a kind of Joe Lieberman in reverse. Spector is up in 2010 and and there was no way he was going to win a GOP primary. It's actually not all that clear he can win a Democratic one either but either way, the Dems win.

The GOP is going to continue to wander in the wilderness until the fall elections in 2010. Then we'll see. But right now they could use a credible national spokesman who isn't Sarah Palin, Sean Hannity, or Newt Gingrich. And they don't have one.