With Specter gone, where to now?

Now that Arlen Specter is gone, broomed from the Party by the Stars-and-Bars clique in the Senate cloakroom and on nostalgic talk radio, what is the future? The bullish Democrats are a long way from peaking. First up is to consider that John McCain will go, not as a Democrat but more likely as an independent like Horace Greeley at the end—a seer and crackpot of the GOP who went out wildly as a Democratic candidate for president in 1872. Olympia Snowe of Maine may follow as a defector for 2012, though by then the results from the 2010 cycle will make Snowe an aftertaste. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, George Voinovich of Ohio, and Sam Brownback of Kansas are confirmed retirees. A strong rumor is that erratic Jim Bunning of Kentucky is done. Kit Bond in Missouri is hanging it up, and Charlie Crist in Florida is hardly a cocky candidate. The 178 House Republicans are less threatened, but then they start with such reduced numbers that a surge will leave them enfeebled as compared to inert. The much mentioned Republican governors, led by Bobby Jindall of Louisiana, Rick Perry of Texas, and Mark Sanford of South Carolina, are the Three Stooges of the base problem that the Republican Party is a frisky Dixie fraternity.