Politics 2000

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter announced today that he will switch from the Republicans to the Democrats. The move would give the Democrats a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate, assuming the Minnesota Supreme Court doesn’t overturn Norm Coleman’s apparent loss to Al Franken.

Pennsylvania, like the rest of the Northeast, has become solidly Democratic in the past two decades. From 1972 to 1988, Pennsylvania voted for Republican presidential candidates four out of five times. However, the state has gone blue each of the past five elections.

Specter faced a fierce Republican primary challenge in 2004. He barely won re-election. He was expecting another stiff intraparty test in 2010.

Instead, Pennsylvania’s Democratic Party has promised to leave the primary field open for Specter, who was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980. Specter said the GOP has shifted far to the right over the past 30 years. He added that he feels he has more in common now with Democrats.

I wonder when Maine Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe will switch. They joined with Specter to broker some deals recently and they don’t fit the present Republican ideology any more than does Specter.

General Motors announced another series of cost-cutting measures Monday in hopes of avoiding bankruptcy and remaining open. Chief among the details is the elimination of the Pontiac brand of vehicles as GM attempts to streamline its operations.

The United Auto Workers agreed to additional cuts in retirement benefits in exchange for receiving up to a 39 percent stake in the company. Bondholders, should they accept the deal, would be given a 10 percent share in return for the tens of billions’ worth of notes they presently hold.

Some analysts think the bondholders will be divided over the proposal. Pundits contend some bondholders will want to take the offer rather than force the company into bankruptcy. Conversely, other stakeholders think they’d get a better deal from a bankruptcy judge.

Meanwhile, Chrysler continues to try to convince Fiat to merge with it. An Apr. 30 deadline looms. The U.S. government previously said Chrysler would not be given additional funds.

The African Democratic Congress, the party which has held power in South Africa since apartheid ended, lost a bit of its influence following this week’s election. The ADC won the first multiracial election in 1994 but failed to receive a two-thirds majority this time.

That means the ADC cannot change the constitution on its own. In short, the ADC will have to work with opposition parties for the first time. The predominately white Democratic Alliance was the biggest gainer, especially in the largely mixed race Western Cape, home of Cape Town. Nonetheless, a simple majority of Parliament is all that’s required for ADC leader Jacob Zuma to be elected South African president in May under the constitution.

While South Africa may have some incremental change, Iceland is undergoing a sea change. The right-wing Independence Party was brought low by angry voters who blame the ruling party for their nation’s economic woes.

The Independence Party led Iceland for 18 years before resigning in January. Iceland’s banks were nationalized before they could collapse as the world’s financial crisis shook the nation hard. Inflation and unemployment have risen sharply. The krona–the unit of currency–has fallen in value.

Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir’s Social Democratic Party had been leading an interim liberal government. Combined with the Left Green Movement, the left-wing parties earned 52 percent of the voters. Leftist parties have never garnered a majority of the vote in Iceland.

The Independence Party sunk to a record low of 24 percent. Meanwhile, the SDP and LGM must reconcile their differences over possibly joining the European Union. Sigurdardottir wants Iceland in the EU. The LGM wants to remain independent, fearing EU interference in Iceland’s prized fishing industry.