After huffing and puffing that he would still frequently vote against the Democrats, new “Democrat” Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania, has fallen into line.  Understanding why gives a whiff of hope for the future.

The only place a semblance of democracy remains in Congress
any more is in Democratic primaries. 
Both parties often do the bidding of their corporate funders, and when
voting on other issues, the Republicans have chosen theocracy and bigotry.  Republican primaries have proven to be
dominated by voters who think the world is 6000 years old and they will soon be
raptured away anyway, so intelligent voting is not an issue for them, but
Democratic primaries still attract voters who often understand reason and facts.

But, and here’s the problem, once elected, most Senators and
Representatives have guaranteed seats so far as their own party is
concerned.  So if all a corrupt
Democrat like Max Baucus needs to worry about is the Republicans, he can and
does safely sell his vote to the highest corporate contributors, and leave his
voters out in the cold.  They won’t
have a choice at election time except for someone even worse.

What’s an American who cares to do?

Shift our attention to Democratic primaries, and fund
challengers to seats held by Democrats who are more problem than solution. 

Arlen Spector switched to the Democratic Party because he
was all but guaranteed to lose a Republican primary challenge from a challenger
even further to the right because their primary voters would be dominated by
lunatics, still bragged he would often vote against the Democrats.  Spector has recently achieved a 97%
vote with the Democrats now that he has a primary challenger. 

With the ethically corrupt and opportunistic, all that
counts is the possibility of their losing their cushy positions. But that does
work.