Kemp, who dies this weekend of cancer, was the first and last Buffalo Bills quarterback in history to win a championship. He was also a noted spokesman for dudes elected to higher office because they're famous already and willing to spout patent disagreeable nonsense in a palatable fashion. He was 73.

And Arlen Specter said something about how Nixon declared "war on cancer" back in 1970 but the government has not funded research enough, since then, which is why Jack Kemp is dead now. This doesn't seem to be really the same as saying "the conservative movement killed Jack Kemp," and it also seems like there has certainly been lots of money for cancer research, and it also seems like bullshit coming from a guy who still doesn't support a public insurance heath care plan.

Anyway. Please elect him again Pennsylvania he will do anything!

The National Republican Senatorial Committee launched a robo-call campaign directed at 100,000 Democratic voters. The call includes a quote from the former president talking about how much he loves Specter, the senator who yesterday switched to the Democratic Party from the Republican side.

Then it reminds them he's against card-check union votes, a huge priority for organized labor right now. Have fun campaigning for this guy, Mr. President!

Specter is now already playing serious defense, having been framed as both a turncoat opportunist and now as a Bush patsy. He should have come out of the gate yesterday blasting, tying himself to some key issue instead of just blathering about how he couldn't get elected without switching parties. But he's a sitting senator so he's probably still unbeatable.

(Update: We originally referenced the 2009 primary, but Specter's senate seat is up in 2010.)

It wasn't too long ago that Jewish neoconservatives were a power center in the Republican Party, and left-wing anti-war types were the anti-Semites for pointing out that Israel wanted the U.S. to invade Iraq. We're happy the right-wing has returned its comfortable, Nixonian, Jew-hating, so we can get all suspicious when we hear Patrick Toomey, Specter's Pennsylvania rival, tell Sean Hannity that Specter has "always been a fish out of water," and attack him for "duplicity." You just can't trust a Jew.

Before Arlen Specter was a Republican defector, he was just another old sad white guy in the Senate who no one paid any attention to (amirite Herb Kohl?). No one had read his 5,400-word article in the NYROB called "The Need to Roll Back Presidential Power Grabs." But today! Now that he's potentially the vote that will allow unfettered Democratic rule, well, everyone is telling him how they thought his point about the law of standing having enough flexibility to allow plaintiffs to challenge the Terrorist Surveillance Program is totally right on and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit can suck it.

Here, he lords over the gathered press, offering anyone who's actually read his piece the chance to ask him a question.

Specter's switch is obviously a big deal, if only as a stark indication of how inbred and self-defeating the Republican Party has become. Specter jumped ship because he was scared to face Pat Toomey, a Club For Growth-backed Republican who almost beat Specter in 2004 by labeling him a moderate, in another primary. Great job, Club For Growth. You targeted Specter because he was insufficiently Republican. Now he's a Democrat. Win!

Still, Specter's switch doesn't mean that there's anything close to filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Votes for cloture, which cut off debate and end filibusters, require 60 votes. And on contentious issues, it will be just as difficult for Majority Leader Harry Reid to wrangle those votes from moderate Democrats and Republicans as it was yesterday. Specter has already indicated that on the "card check" legislation, for instance—he opposes it—he will not vote with his new party. There are a host of other issues where Specter, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Colo.Neb.) and others will buck the leadership when asked to help shut down a filibuster.

A more interesting question is which Democrat is sacrificing his committee chairmanship to make way for Specter? Specter is currently the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, which is currently chaired by Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), who will release the gavel to Specter with his cold, dead fingers. But by switching to the majority, Specter is actually losing power at judiciary—being the top Republican is better than being the No. 2 Democrat. So it's unlikely he was induced to switch without the promise of a chairmanship somewhere. Sen. Jim Jeffords (I-Vt.) was given the Environment and Public Works Committee in 2001, when he agreed to caucus with the Democrats, giving them a majority.

Sen. Arlen Specter, who has already defeated Chris Matthews without throwing a single punch, decided to "warm up the crowd" at a Republican event in Manhattan last night:

A witness reports Specter began by asking if anyone in the room was Polish. About 10 guests out of hundreds there raised their hands. Specter deemed the number insignificant and forged ahead with some supposedly funny Polish jokes, including the old one about the man who interrupted him once, saying, "Hey, careful. I'm Polish!" Specter said he responded, "That's OK - I'll tell it more slowly." Specter also told two other tasteless jokes in the same Polish vein.

Arlen Specter would never make it out of Greenpoint alive. [P6; Racist answer to headline: "Turn off the carousel." No Arlen did not ask that specifically, AS FAR AS WE KNOW.]