In the Right

Specter's statement has two operative parts: that the GOP "has moved farther and farther to the right," and that Specter has found himself "increasingly at odds with the Republican philosophy."

First, has the GOP "moved farther and farther to the Right" since Specter first ran for the Senate in 1980?

That was the year Ronald Reagan won the Republican nomination for president.

That was the year the GOP platform first included a call for a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution, putting the party squarely in the pro-life camp - a place from which is has not moved, despite the best efforts of some very determined pro-choice activists over the decades. And, 1980 was the year the GOP platform for the first time opposed ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

There's more: 1980 was the year the GOP platform called for enactment of the Kemp-Roth tax cut plan.

In other words, the Republican Party of 1980 -- the Republican Party whose nomination for the Specter sought and achieved -- was a conservative party to begin with.

Well, let's flip this analysis. Has Specter moved increasingly to the left?

No.

Every year since 1971, the American Conservative Union has been issuing its Ratings of the Congress, separating the liberals from the conservatives on a 100-point scale, where a perfect liberal scores zero and a perfect conservative scores 100.

Arlen Specter's lifetime ACU rating is a left-of-center 44.47.

But that's not because Specter has moved, over the course of his career, from the right to the left.

As far as the ACU's Rating is concerned, he has always been on the left:

In 1981, his first year in the Senate, he scored a 40.

In 1982, he scored 26; 1983, 16; 1984, 36; 1985, 36; 1986, 33; 1987, 15; and 1988, a 33.

He didn't break 50 on the ACU Rating until 1989 -- his ninth year in the Senate -- when he scored a whopping 57.

In fact, his scores over the last eight years, from 2001-2008, indicate that, if anything, he has moved to the right since first coming to the Senate:

In 2001, he scored a 51; in 2002, a 50; in 2003, a 65; in 2004, a 75; in 2005, a 63; in 2006, a 43; in 2007, a 40; in 2008, a 42.

His average ACU Rating during the Bush presidency, then, was a 53.6.

That's almost twice as conservative as the 29.3 ACU Rating he averaged during his first eight years in office.

That's rather odd, for a man who says he has found himself "increasingly at odds" with the Republican philosophy.

If anything, it looks like exactly the opposite is true -- he has found himself increasingly more comfortable with the Republican philosophy.

Can Arlen Specter's ACU Ratings tell us anything, then?

Why, yes, they can.

Turns out Specter's highest-ever single-year ACU Rating was a 75 he scored in ... 2004, when he was being seriously challenged from the Right by one Pat Toomey.

Let Arlen Specter leave the Grand Old Party to join the Democrats -- in doing so, he will simultaneously raise the level of conservatism in both parties.

Specter wasn't at home in the Republican Party from the very beginning.