Republican Party needs to offer clear alternative if it is to survive

Sen. Arlen Specter's defection to the Democratic Party carried two reminders — one bipartisan and one strictly for Republicans.

The bipartisan reminder is that for too many politicians, self-preservation is job one. Specter, who enjoyed the support of George W. Bush and conservative luminary Rick Santorum during his successful bid to win a fifth Senate term in 2004, didn't switch parties as a matter of principle.

About this, he was perfectly candid: "I am unwilling to have my 29-year Senate record judged by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate."

Translation: "I am 20 points down in the polls to a GOP challenger, and I have a better chance of winning a sixth term in the Senate running as a Democrat. I'd be short-changing the American people if I left Congress after only 30 years."

The reminder to Republicans is that they are still in deep trouble. In 2006, Republicans lost 30 House seats, six Senate seats and majority control in both chambers of Congress.

In 2008, they lost 21 more House seats, eight Senate seats and the White House. The downdraft from federal elections wiped out GOP candidates in states that only four years earlier had been solidly Republican.

With Specter's defection, Republicans are still playing a game of political subtraction. You only win, however, by addition.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Democrats were subtracting, Republicans adding: Bob Martinez in Florida, Ben "Nighthorse" Campbell in Colorado, Norm Coleman in Minnesota, Phil Gramm and a young legislator named Rick Perry in Texas.

Now the arithmetic is reversed. No one will mistake Specter for the ghost of Ronald Reagan. But Specter entered the Senate in 1980 as a member of Reagan's big tent Republican Party. His departure, after two electoral expulsions for Republicans, leaves behind a depressingly small, increasingly regional tent.

How do you rebuild a bigger, national party? For starters, you show tolerance for Republicans who win in states or districts that aren't reliably red but who aren't necessarily ideological pole sitters. Specter's first vote as a Democrat was against the Obama budget.

Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., a real conservative and fighter for reform in Congress, said he'd rather have 30 principled Republicans in the Senate than 60 without a set of beliefs.