Arlen Specter left the GOP because it is a lot easier to win in Pennsylvania as a Democrat than as a Republican. It is that simple. For folks on the Right to brush this off as some sort of 'good purge' is extremely naive.
In the end, Ted Kennedy was a politician, plain and simple. Yet he embodied how politics and public service can be successfully intertwined. You can't be a good public servant without being a good politician. Kennedy was both.
It is the '94 race which in many ways allowed Ted Kennedy to become his own man rather than the 'third brother.' He had to reach down and win it on his own.
One must remember that in the '70s, Democrats still grasping for Camelot were desperately pinning their hopes on Teddy while Republicans were doing everything they could politically to turn him into a punch line post-Chappaquiddick. And the idea of Ted Kennedy - rather than the actual man - dominated his political legacy through the early '90s.
With the likely nominations of Barack Obama by the Democrats and John McCain by the Republicans, one of these two parties is headed for a 2009 crack-up that could prove as messy as any party civil war in recent history.
Some day, the public might actually revolt against the undemocratic system of seniority that allows Congress to keep the old ways of Washington ingrained into the culture of Congress.
