Politico reports that Vice President Joe Biden was absolutely essential in convincing Senator Arlen Specter to join the Democratic Party. The two men spoke 14 times with each other in the past couple of months.

Biden has met or spoken on the phone with Specter an average of once a week since the Inauguration. And after Specter became one of three Senate Republicans to support the administration’s stimulus package, those conversations were increased.

In the past 10 weeks, Biden has spoken with Specter 14 times — six in person and eight on the phone, according to the senior official.

Biden tried to get Specter to switch parties for years, even decades already. Time and again the vice president told Specter that his views made him a Democrat, not a moderate Republican. In the last couple of months, he added that Specter would not leave his party as much as his party left him; there was no room for moderate Republicans in the party any longer, Biden told Specter.

The arguments used are fantastically interesting. On the one hand, Biden always believed that Specter was a Democrat, on the other hand he told Specter that the GOP “left him” years ago. If Specter was indeed always a Democrat, how could the Republican Party have left him? Biden seemingly believed that Specter was really a Democrat in disguise. That is not a problem, but it is quite ludicrous for anybody to pretend that the GOP has radicalized. It has not. Specter’s views were Democratic, his party affiliation was one of political expediency. When it was no longer useful for him to be a Republican senator because he was seriously challenged by a conservative challenger, he quickly left.

Michael Merritt already responded to a question raised by one of our regular readers, who comments as ‘c3.’ The question was how Specter’s move is different from Joe Lieberman’s decision to become an Independent because he could not defeat Ned LaMont in the Democratic primaries.

One of the reasons, as Michael pointed out, is that Lieberman was always honest about his party affiliation. He told voters he would reregister as an Independent if absolutely necessary. Specter did no such thing. In fact, he said one month ago that he would always be a Republican because he believed ‘one-party rule’ to be horrible for the country. Remember that he was already talking to Biden for at least two months when he said that. To sum up: Lieberman was honest, Specter lied.

Another reason – unmentioned by Michael – is that Lieberman is a man of principles. He was and is a Democrat on domestic issues. His voting record has not changed one bit. Specter has no principles: he does everything necessary to keep his seat – and he was no ‘Republican’ on domestic issues. Both men were – and are – Democrats. Specter just pretended to be a Republican.

Meanwhile, Republicans are making a tragic mistake by blowing this thing up. Michael Steele and others should not be angry, or at least not show it. Be positive. When asked by reporters, every single Republican politician out there should answer that he is looking forward to beating Specter next year. Furthermore, they should say, this will help Republicans convince voters that they are serious about responsible spending. The senator, they should point out, was one of the few Republicans who supported the idiotically expensive and ineffective economic ‘stimulus’ bill. That was a key vote. No man who is fiscally responsible could have supported it. The party is better off without these people, or so its prominent members should say.