ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Centrism and just plain survival made Arlen Specter part of the nation's political fabric for nearly half a century, his cancer-fighting, party-switching story as much about evading death as writing laws.
But the very adaptability that helped Specter, 80, endure turned politically fatal Tuesday, when the Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-Democrat lost his party's Pennsylvania primary.
His defeat raised a painful truth: He could not have won a sixth Senate term as a member of either party given the anti-incumbent mood of 2010.
At the polls Tuesday, some Democrats said they'd lost patience with the 30-year Senate veteran nicknamed by his opponents "Specter the Defector."
"He must think we're idiots," said Tom Cragin, a college professor who cast his vote for Rep. Joe Sestak, the retired Navy admiral who on Tuesday bested Specter in the Democratic primary.
Some took a more pragmatic approach.
"He changed parties to save his hide," said Ira Robbins, 61, a Republican who said he planned on voting for Specter in November. "But that's what politics is. It's a dirty game."
Specter has acknowledged that his party switch last year was about his own political survival in an increasingly polarized state Republican Party. Specter cast one of only three GOP votes for Obama's $787 billion stimulus package — infuriating conservatives and perhaps sealing his fate as a Republican.
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