Sweet Bitterness? Arlen Specter Thinks Hillary Should Replace Obama?

posted at 11:28 am on January 12, 2012 by Rovin

Via the First Street Journal, during an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Board, the political switch-hitter Arlen Specter suggested that it’s not Joe Biden that Hillary Clinton should replace:

Should President Obama dump Joe Biden as his running mate and replace him with Hillary Rodham Clinton?

Arlen Specter was asked that hot-potato question, circulating in some Democratic circles, in a meeting Tuesday with the Inquirer Editorial Board.

His answer showed that the former 30-year senator hasn’t lost his knack for blunt talk – nor, perhaps, his bitterness over what he feels were slights from Obama during his own failed 2010 reelection campaign.

He suggested that maybe Obama was the one who should be dumped.

“That’s the second-best alternative,” he said of replacing Biden. “A better alternative is to make Hillary the [presidential] nominee. As long as we’re talking about dumping, let’s go to the core problem.”  link

Specter’s disdain for Obama using him as a temporary tool also drew sharp criticism from the former Pennsylvania Senator:

“But he had some strong words for Obama. In his new book, copies of which have been released to reporters, he describes several opportunities in the final weeks of the 2010 campaign when Obama could have helped him by campaigning more for him in Pennsylvania – and did not.

One time late in the race, he wrote, Obama flew over Philadelphia on the way to a political appearance in New York. Another time, he flew over Pittsburgh on the way to Ohio.

“President Obama has done fairly well under fairly difficult circumstances,” he said Tuesday. “He has his limitations. He is not experienced, and it shows.”

He said Obama had been hampered because “he has a problem with listening. In a roomful of people, he’s always the smartest guy in the room – and always has to prove it.”  link

Is Mr. Specter showing his bitterness at being thrown under the bus by Obama?  Perhaps, but after three and a half years of NOT LISTENING to the American public on the President’s disastrous spending policies, we might take notice of Arlen Specter’s observation about Obama’s “limited experience”.  You would think our Republican candidates could focus a bit more on these apparent flaws, instead of tearing each other apart and loading the Democrat’s arsenal with disparaging sound bites—are you LISTENING Newt and Rick?

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