The March 3 issue of Penn Current, student newspaper at the University of Pennsylvania, has this interview with former Republican U.S. Senator Arlen Specter, who switched parties in 2009 and ran for re-election as a Democrat. He was defeated in the 2010 Democratic primary. Scroll down to the question that begins, “In your final floor statement in the Senate, you said ‘partisan gridlock’…” Specter’s response complains that the Democratic and Republican Parties are too extreme.
To support his statement, he mentions that Joe Lieberman was defeated in a Democratic primary in 2006, and that in 2010, he could not have won a Republican primary, that Senator Bob Bennett of Utah could not win a Republican primary, and that Lisa Murkowski could not win a Republican primary. But he doesn’t mention the fact that Lieberman and Murkowski had the courage to run in the general election without the nomination of either major party, and they both were re-elected. Many political observers felt that Specter could have been re-elected in 2010 if he had run for re-election as an independent, but he was not willing to attempt that. Thanks to Political Wire for the link. UPDATE: in 2012, U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe, Republican from Maine, is up for re-election. This Public Policy Poll released March 9 shows that she would have an easier time getting re-elected as an independent than she would winning a Republican primary.