The Spectacle of Arlen Specter

On the surface, the recent party switch of Arlen Specter seems to support the media claim that America has become polarized (It also throws a little fuel on the fire of our recent debate concerning the resiliency of the Republican party). On the surface, one could easily assume that Americans have become so consumed with social issues that the members of the odd party out are beginning to jump ship. However, from the perspective of both Morris Fiorina and John Aldrich, this is not the case. Based on their arguments, the state of the party system in America is quite stable.

So what would they say about Arlen Specter?

Fiorina would say that Specter's switch is part of a natural process among political elites but doesn't represent the political electorate as a whole. He would contend that Specter's decision to switch parties is representative of the "sorting" process. Specter is well known to be one of the moderate Republicans and more than likely switched because the Democratic party now more closely reflects Specter's political ideology or that specter's ideology changed altogether and is now better reflected in the ideological stance of the Democrats. However as shown below, neither of these is the case. It is here that Aldrich's argument concerning the career politician is dead on.

Based on a portion of Aldrich's argument proposed in Why Parties, Specter's party switch had little to do with the perceived "culture war" and more to do with career ambition. In all, Aldrich argues that politicians choose the party that gives them the best chance at a long political career:

"...politicians turn form their political party- that is, [they] use its powers, resources and institutional forms- when they believe doing so increases their prospects for winning desired outcomes, and they turn from it if it does not (Aldrich Pg. 24)."

Specter apparently came to the understanding that remaining a Republican would seriously hamper his chances for re-election (Read this article) and thus decided a switch to the Democratic party was the best career move to make.

In all, the recent shift of Specter indicates on the surface that the Republican party (at least in the way it represents the ideologies of political elites) is transforming. However, it may not amount to much. Not long ago, Joe Leiberman switched from the Democratic to the Republican party. Also consider that at the time he did so, media pundits were claiming that the Democratic party was in need of a major overhaul. This exemplifies Fiorina's argument in that the media at large are mostly responsible for the illusion of a polarized America. Since conflict seems to be the only aspect of politics the media deems newsworthy, only issues such as the switch of Specter are reported in any volume thus depicting the raging "culture war". In reality however, there is no such thing as a "culture war", just a continual fluctuation of media attention on specific issues that are bounced around among the elites. And as irony would have it, the media pundits are elites.