The fact that the stimulus isn’t seeing any Republican votes in the House and only three in the Senate isn’t a sign that it’s a bad bill, it’s a sign that it’s something against a far-right ideology that has plagued this country for too long. A perfect example of this is from the mouth of one of the Republican Senators supporting the bill:
“When I came back to the cloak room after coming to the agreement a week ago today," said Specter, “one of my colleagues said, ‘Arlen, I’m proud of you.’ My Republican colleague said, ‘Arlen, I’m proud of you.’ I said, ‘Are you going to vote with me?’ And he said, ‘No, I might have a primary.’ And I said, ‘Well, you know very well I’m going to have a primary.'{[}]amp;quot;
What’s this mean? Well basically it shows that the Republicans are scared to death. They saw what happened last November and now their own political lives are on support, with someone ready to yank the plug.
{[}]lt;p>If you look closely at the remaining Republicans in Congress, they are from solidly red areas. That means beating a Democratic is really no big problem. After all, these areas went for McCain in the year of Obama. But when you talk primaries you open a whole new can of worms. The last thing they want to see if some conservative saying “Mr. X” voted for that huge bill of “government waste”. That gets the neo-cons salivating, and that leads to Republicans having to spend more money to defend their seats in a primary.
Does this make it right? Absolutely not. As matter of fact, Specter is admitting that these Senators are neglecting their constitutional duty. No where does it say they are to serve for their own self interest. They are elected to serve the people and the best interest of the country. So what we have here is the start of an excellent quote to use against the Republicans in 2010. Let’s show the American people that while they were losing their jobs and homes, the Republicans worried only about themselves. That is the direct message from a senior Republican in the Senate.