Anti-Specter fail

I knew that the Republicans were going to start flailing when Specter ran off, but I had no idea it was going to get this bad. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has launched a site called Meet Democrat Arlen Specter. The premise of the whole thing is that… Arlen used to support Republicans and knock Democrats.

From their press release:

“In light of Senator Specter’s changing political party, we felt it was our civic duty to adequately inform Pennsylvania Democrat primary voters about their new Senator’s record and his close relationship with our former President George W. Bush,” said NRSC spokeswoman Amber Wilkerson.

Uh… yeah. As far as a political move goes, this is outright moronic.

What the hell is the NRSC’s goal here? To get Specter to lose the Democratic primary? Okay, let’s say he loses. He gets replaced with a candidate who is far more to the left than Specter and then that guy wins the overall, leaving the Senate even leftier than it was before. It’s like the NRSC read my earlier post and decided to make sure the exact opposite happens.

If the goal is to get someone too liberal on the ticket so Toomey has a chance, well they muffed that one up too. By highlighting Specter’s attachments to the Republican Party as the reason not to vote for him, any of the rightward-leaning Democrats receiving the calls are certainly not going to be turned off of Specter and onto the guy on the Republican ticket. It’s a robo-call that calls the entire Republican Party Specter’s albatross.

It isn’t just “here’s Specter with Bush”, it’s Specter on Lynn Swann, John McCain, Limbaugh, talking about Reid, the works. We’re looking at the kind of “shoot yourself in the foot” tactic that I’d expect out of the DCCC. The Republicans appear to want Specter to lose for no reason other than they’re mad at him. It’s amazingly short-sighted and if it works they’re going to be in even worse shape come 2010.