Limbaugh to Specter: Do me a favor and take the McCains with you

The quote’s slightly ambiguous but I think we can safely assume this is Rush’s own view, as it seems to reflect grassroots sentiment on Twitter and elsewhere. With the filibuster gone, there’s nothing left to lose. Purge ‘em all!

“A lot of people say, ‘Well, Specter, take [Sen. John] McCain with you. And his daughter [Meghan]. Take McCain and his daughter with you if you’re gonna…” he told listeners, dissolving in laughter.

“…..It’s ultimately good. You’re weeding out people who aren’t really Republicans,” he said.

Limbaugh did concede the downside of Specter’s defection. “It makes the Senate essentially as big a slam dunk for Obama and the Democrats as the House of Representatives already is,” he said.

McCain, Snowe, Collins, Grahamnesty: There are easily another five or six who could be “weeded out.” Of course, the bigger the Democrats’ advantage in seats, the longer it’ll take to recover the filibuster, let alone a majority. How long are you willing to wait for a backlash to Great Society II to sweep conservatism back to power? Bear in mind that the programs they pass while not even having to make minor concessions — health-care and amnesty, to name just two — won’t be un-doable once the GOP’s back in control, so every day we’re in the minority is one day closer to a permanent European model.

Here’s Benedict Arlen’s presser while you mull. This is a “painful decision” for him, blah blah blah. Pay attention especially to his surprising candor about how heavily the polls showing Toomey beating him like a drum weighed in his decision. At around 8:20, he all but admits that he made the switch to save his own ass after his internal polling last week showed he was finish. A true man of principle.

Update: Rock bottom for the GOP:

What’s notable about the Republican collapse is not simply its depth but its velocity. It was just a few years ago, in the wake of George W. Bush’s reelection, that books were being written on whether Republicans had acquired a virtually unbreakable hold on the levers of political power. After 2004, Republicans held a ten-vote advantage in the Senate.

The last time a political party suffered such grievous losses in the Senate during a compressed period was from 1976-1980, when the Democrats went from a post-Watergate high of 61 seats after Carter’s first election, to 45 seats as Ronald Reagan came in. The numbers are almost perfectly reversed: in the last four years, the Democrats have gone from a 45-55 deficit in the Senate after Bush’s reelection to 60 seats (or 59 with an asterisk) today.

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