And then there were 59…

In the 1999 film Three Kings, Major Archie Gates (as played by George Clooney) asks what is the most important thing in the world. He dismisses his fellows as they respond “respect,” “love,” and “the will of God,” before answering “Necessity.”
Necessity is a good word to remember when thinking about Arlen Specter, senior senator from Pennsylvania, who as of today is apparently a Democrat. Some will argue that he was a Democrat in all but name, but he will certainly be a Democrat in the mold of Ben Nelson or Joe Lieberman – the sort of conservative outlier who is a perpetual thorn in the side of the party and is regularly feted by the Sabbath Gasbags as a grand statesman.
This is merely the latest instance in the great shakeout. From 1994-96, conservative Democrats either retired or defected in relatively extraordinary numbers, which gave the Republicans a stronger grip on the Senate than they should have normally had – but made the extent of Southern conservatism clearer and more consistent. The Democratic majority in the Senate now is as high as it’s been in 40 years, but this time, it’s not padded out with the likes of Richard Russell or James Eastland or John Stennis; there are no Senators with a (D) by their names who could legitimately be described as “conservative.” Centrist, hawkish, just plain ornery perhaps, but no conservatives – especially not by the modern definition.
Arlen Specter hasn’t moved that much. He was an unremarkable sort of Republican in the age of Lugar and Kassenbaum and Heinz and Dole. In the post-Gingrich Congressional GOP, though, he was a poor fit, as evidenced by the repeated primary challenge from Pat Toomey. As the GOP shrinks and becomes more conservative (two polls this week suggest that only one in five voters nationally self-identifies as a Republican), the odds that Specter could survive a primary against a hardcore GOP challenger are…well, they’re non-zero, but you wouldn’t want to bet your lunch money. And even if Specter could see off the challenge, doing so would entail running so far to starboard of his usual positions that he would make himself even more vulnerable in the general election for a state that hasn’t gone red in Presidential elections since 1988. Add in the likely nomination of Ed Rendell on the D’s side, and the cause becomes perfectly hopeless.
So there you have it. Necessity. If he wanted his Senate career to continue past next November, Arlen Specter had one option open to him, and he took it.
Now things get REALLY interesting. The GOP now has every incentive to fight like hell to keep Al Franken from being seated, as he would make Big Sixty – thus very nearly taking the filibuster off the table. If he does get seated, the GOP has no incentive at all to cooperate with anything, because none of their votes are needed for literally anything at all; any negotiations over legislation will be purely internal to the Democratic party-in-Congress. Which means that maximum heft will go to those last four or five votes needed to make 60…one of whom is Specter.
Bear in mind that New England went for the Democrats in a big way in 2008 – not only did Obama win every state of Red Sox Nation, but none of those states elected a single Republican to the House of Representatives. The other Specter-ish New England Republicans in the Senate might well be tempted to make the jump now – the choice seems to be either a shot at being key players among Senate Democrats, or a stint as a helpless Republican in a party intent on sliding out from under them to the right.
Ultimately I don’t think it will come to that – more likely there will be a precarious balance for a couple of years as people jockey for position ahead of the 2010 elections. But with the GOP defending a number of open seats, the odds of getting serious pushback against the Dem majority are not great, and much depends on whether more veteran GOP Senators decide to pack it in and retire (or run for governor, in the case of Kay Bailey-Hutchison). The prospect of another Great Reshuffle, scarcely 15 years after the last one – well, that’s the sort of thing you get into political science for in the first place.