AP
when youve been in the Senate for 30 years,what's 6 more?
Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter is a Democrat again following a decades-long turn among Republicans,a defection that has the GOP warning about the perils of unchecked power only a few years after it controlled both the White House and Congress.
“The threat to the country presented …by this defection really relates to the issue of whether or not in the United States or America our people want the majority party to have whatever it wants without restraint,without a check or balance,”Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Tuesday after Specter made his startling switch.
President Barack Obama welcomed Specter to the White House on Wednesday to celebrate his decision,which Obama said “reflects an independence that has been the hallmark of Arlen Specter’s career since the days he arrived in Washington.”
The move left Democrats with 59 votes in the Senate,and hoping that Al Franken can finally win a marathon recount in Minnesota and become their 60th. That’s the number needed to overcome any Republican filibuster aimed at blocking President Barack Obama’s ambitious agenda.