Arlen Specter's Pure Politics

The recent party switch of Senator Arlen Specter, though exciting, is not very indicative of the current state of America’s political party system. It is simply an exception to the rule. The argument put forward by Morris P. Fiorina in his book, Culture War?, I feel, states the true case very well. Contrary to popular belief, especially amongst Republicans, America is not at its base a culturally divided nation. The average American voter or party identifier is essentially a rational person who chooses their party identification based on personal beliefs regarding major political and social issues. Our current political landscape is made up of mostly those who vote honestly and determine party ties by issue positions, not the other way around.

Fiorina argues that the true cultural divide is amongst political elites, not the average voter. Thus, it is difficult to imagine that a long-time Republican elite such as Specter could simply switch parties at this point in his career. However, in a purely political sense, Specter’s decision is perfectly logical. We must remember that every politician’s overarching goal is to win his/her next election. When Arlen Specter conducted a poll amongst his Republican constituency last week, he was basically told that his legislative behavior no longer satisfied them. Thus, his top priority of getting re-elected faced a tremendous obstacle. After finding out that his primary and re-election constituencies no longer supported him due to his moderate behavior on the Hill, Specter was left with little other recourse. Hence, from a political standpoint, his decision made sense insofar as it improved his chances of winning re-election.

However, as I mentioned, Specter’s switch is an exception, not the rule. Party elites are indeed the most ideologically divided components of our political system, rendering party switches in the Senate chamber few and far between. Thus, I feel that Fiorina’s conception of America’s electorate is not fundamentally flawed, but simply quasi-flexible. I highly doubt that Specter’s switch has caused Fiorina to reconsider his argument.