Just when the GOP couldn’t look any worse, Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania’s Republican Senator is, well, no longer a Republican. Now, whenever Al Franken is affirmed for the Senate (God knows when that’ll happen), the Democrats will have a filibuster-proof majority, thus, possibly an even more rigorously progressive agenda in Congress.

Specter’s statement this morning:

“I have been a Republican since 1966. I have been working extremely hard for the party, for its candidates and for the ideals of a Republican Party whose tent is big enough to welcome diverse points of view. While I have been comfortable being a Republican, my party has not defined who I am. I have taken each issue one at a time and have exercised independent judgment to do what I thought was best for Pennsylvania and the nation. Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.”

Wowza! This will be interesting, since Obama likes to tout Specter’s moderate bipartisanship on pivotal issues.

While Harold Ford seems pretty OK to me, I do have to ask exactly why he’s being considered for commerce secretary… Chuck Todd explains:

On paper, Ford checks a lot of boxes for a an easy-to-confirm nominee for this post: He’s a pro-business Democrat (remember, this is Commerce Secretary so the job is to be a promoter of business); he’s a former member of the Congressional Black Caucus (you’ll recall this whole kerfuffle over control of the census under a Judd Gregg-led Commerce Dept. was started by complaints from the CBC); and he’s a practiced spokesperson on TV (the Geithner rollout this week is a reminder that the administration doesn’t have enough solid media savvy members of his team who can sell the administration’s policies.)

Not a bad case for Ford, but

And this will totally make up for him not winning that Senate seat in 2004. Remember when the Old Southern GOP played dirty and played into old, daunting stereotypes?

And I won’t lie, I think he’s kinda cute.

Photos by nmfbihop

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean will vacate his seat when his term expires in January, following a tumultuous campaign for the party’s ticket and then the White House.

You may remember Dean as an early front-runner in the 2004 presidential race. After that unfortunate* “Dean Scream” and a 3rd place finish in the Iowa caucuses, Dean dropped out, but became useful as the DNC Chairman in 2005. And if you’re a real news nerd (or a New Englander who was paying some attention a few years ago), you may remember Dean as the governor of Vermont from 1991-2003.

Starting in 2006 for midterm elections, he orchestrated the 50 State Strategy by investing in each state to garner Congressional seats and lay groundwork for President-Elect Barack Obama’s campaign. States like North Carolina, Virginia, and Indiana, which had not elected a Democrat for president in decades, went blue on Election Day. Obama will select a successor for Dean. An aide told the Post that Obama may choose Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill:

My sense is that the Obama folks are pretty insular and don’t want somebody else building the party and haven’t even decided what building the party means for them. I bet they go with a split chair again …McCaskill at Chair, and somebody like Steve Hildebrand [Obama's Deputy Campaign Manager] at Operational Chair.”

*Ed Note: I really didn’t find anything wrong with the Dean Scream. He was just really excited. Leave the guy alone!

Ads for people seeking sexual encounters in Denver during the time of the Democratic National Convention spiked last week, compared to the same days of the week earlier in August. According to CNet, there are usually around 425 active posts on Craigslist’s “Casual Encounters” section on each Sunday in August before the convention. On August 24, there were 763 posts up, an 80 percent increase.

Most post headlines are along the lines of “Here 4 DNC? Come get sexual with me”; “Does the DNC make you hot?”; and “Looking to service a young Democrat.” And of course, they get racier…

I can just imagine St. Paul next week — Democrats may wanna hook up and have fun, but the GOP is into some kinky stuff hhehe

Photo by RiotJane

“I think that women often face these kinds of challenges, of course, in our society. But I think that she did an amazing job in changing that, as I think Senator Obama and Bill Richardson, where Hispanics are concerned, also made it possible for our country to move on into the 21st century and say, ‘Wait a minute, these old things that held us down in the past, we’re now within sight of a time when we can move beyond that.’”

– Al Gore, Meet the Press, July 20.

And he’s absolutely right. Even though I’m quite tuckered out from the Oppression Olympics that emerged from this primary campaign, The fact that we had a woman, an African-American, and a Latino simply in the running as serious candidates for a major party is proof that we’re moving forward as a nation.

How do you think this particular primary has changed the way we view the Democratic electorate? The general electorate?

As Jessica at Feministing says, the more I watch Sarah Haskins’ “Target:Women” videos as they crop up, the more I realize how brilliant and awesome she is. In this latest installment of the ongoing series (well, I hope it’s ongoing!) she skewers the ridiculousness of “angry women voters” and the further ridiculousness of the candidates’ attempts to go for those leftover “angry women votes” from HRC’s primary run. Ohhhh Snap! Check the video after the jump…
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