During the primaries in Pennsylvania, I posted a plea in this thread begging conservatives to ignore party politics and vote for Pat Toomey over Arlen Specter:

This particular race is producing incredibly strange results. Somehow Specter has managed to gain endorsements from every “official” Republican representative, in spite of the fact that he frequently votes against the interests of those very representatives. For example:

Specter is solidly pro-abortion. Yet the former county commissioner of Lancaster County, Jim Huber, recorded a radio spot supporting Specter; in spite of the fact that he sits on the board of a local pro-life organization.

It has been mentioned over and over again on this board that Supreme Court justices will be the big battleground over the next several years. If Specter is reelected, he will become the chairman of the Justice committee in charge of deciding who the Senate will even get to vote on. Since Specter lead the opposition against Robert Bork and voted in favor of Bill Clinton during his impeachment, it seems likely that Specter will oppose any Constitutionally sound judges who may be nominated by Bush; yet Bush is endorsing him anyway.

Yesterday I talked with a friend with close ties to a representative in Harrisburg. The representative’s opinion is that Rick Santorum would prefer to endorse Pat Toomey (Pat would almost certainly agree with Rick Santorum on almost every vote.) but that there is some reason why he is forced to endorse Specter.

This whole issue appears to be party politics of the worst sort. The man who is at best lukewarm to the positions espoused by the party—and is often an obstacle to those positions—is being supported wholeheartedly by that party for no apparent reason beyond the fact that he’s the incumbent and that he has power. Meanwhile, his opponent is also an incumbent, just in a different house of Congress, he has consistently held the party line, yet he is being given the cold shoulder by the same party he wholeheartedly supports.

Here’s a few things Specter has done:

- He voted against adding an AWB renewal to the Protection of Commerce Act; a good thing.

- He voted for the original AWB; a very bad (and illegal) thing.

- He was a member of the Warren Commission which investigated the JFK assassination and gave us the laughable “Magic Bullet” theory.

- He voted for the so called “Incumbent Protection Act.”

- Citizens Against Government Waste has named Specter Porker of the Year for 2003.

If you support our Constition at all—including the 2nd Amendment—and can vote in the Republican primary, please go out and vote for Pat Toomey. Our Constitutional Republic cannot survive many more years of men like Arlan Specter.

After Specter narrowly squeaked out a win in the primary due to those endorsements, I posted this message:

This is what you get when you vote for the guy who “can” win, not the guy who should win. We now have no chance of getting someone in the Senate who will confirm judges who obey the Constitution.

If Republican leaders had actually endorsed the candidate who most closely matched the party’s platforms instead of basing their endorsements on the cult of personality or seniority or power or whatever the heck it was, the most likely outcome would have been a complete landslide in favor of constitutional principles. Today our country has taken another major injury because Republican leaders put politics before principles. I am completely disgusted.

The general principle is that placing party politics above principles always produces damage. In his Farewell Address, George Washington wrote:

“All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

“However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

As brilliant as he was, Washington’s writing style was incredibly dense. If you didn’t understand what he wrote the first time, go back and keep reading it until it makes sense.

And for those who don’t have that much patience, here’s an executive summary: “Party politics are incredibly dangerous because they place control of who can be elected into the hands of a few men who are leading the parties, undermining the ability of The People to vote for the best person for the job.”

(Note: These last two paragraphs and the quote from George Washington were originally posted here. Warning, that commentary thread contains vulgarity.)

To add to the executive summary; Washington points out that putting men into power in such a corrupt fasion inevitably leads to the destruction of the system of government which allows it to happen.

I really hate to say this, but I was right. (I would really have preferred to be proven wrong.)