Arlen Specter announced he was changing parties today, switching from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party. After the absolutely huge blow up surrounding his switch (and what with me having a conservative blog and all) I think it would be appropriate to join the fray and give my two cents: I’m unmoved by this news. If you want to know why, you only need to take a look at his record in the Senate.

Mr. Specter advocates lower taxes, greater spending, and a balanced budget amendment in the current fiscal environment. Tell me that doesn’t blow your mind. There is no tax bracket he does not want to lower taxes on and only one program (NASA) that he wants to cut spending on. It’s an unrealistic position and those sorts of things always make me do a double take.

On the issues, he’s always been more Democratic than Republican. He’s broken with the Republican Party and supported the bail outs. He wants to increase the minimum wage, supports Affirmative Action, supports greater environmental regulation (he actually introduced the Cap and Trade legislation to the Senate), wants to expand Medicare, and wants to give illegal immigrants access to public programs. He’s pro-choice and pro-gay marriage, but as much as I support these issues, they’re definitely not Republican issues.

He does support the Second Amendment, he does support American military action overseas, and he does support free trade, but taken together these issues do not outweigh all of the above.

I’m not sure his switching parties will change the way he votes on anything. He certainly never bowed to Republican pressure – I would be willing to bet he won’t bow to Democratic pressure. Everyone’s going to be screaming that this is a big deal for the next few days, but honestly I think this is a change in title (dare I say, name?) only. If he manages to land a committee chairmanship, it might actually moderate the Democratic party a bit, depending on what committee it is and who the chair used to be. Yes, the Democrats will, in theory, now have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate – but if he doesn’t change his vote based on his new party affiliation, nothing will change there in practice.

All in all, I’d say this isn’t the game-changing event Democrats are making it out to be. That said, it’s still something of an embarrassment and I can definitely understand the “you can’t quit – you’re fired!” response coming from the right.