It was only a joke. In mid-february, during backroom negotiations over the economic-stimulus package, Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson tried to cut the tension. He turned to the three Republicans in the room and said, "If only you'd consider switching sides, then we'd all be on the same team and this would be a lot easier." Looking back on that moment, Democrat Nelson recalls something that seems far more telling now than it did at the time: Arlen Specter was the only one of them who didn't laugh.rnMaybe the Pennsylvania Senator knew he was bound to wind up on the other side of the aisle eventually. Democrats-including Vice President Joe Biden, with whom he had shared many a ride on Amtrak when they were both commuting Senators-had been wooing him for years. Specter, 79, had been a Democrat until 1965. But when his latest turnabout finally happened, it caught the entire capital by surprise and altered everyone's calculation of what is now possible. Assuming that the interminable Minnesota recount battle finally ends with Al Franken being awarded the Senate seat-he holds a 312-vote lead-the Democrats will have a 60-vote Senate majority. That's the magic number it takes to beat back a Republican filibuster and, at least in theory, push through Barack Obama's big-ticket agenda items. Not since Jimmy Carter's days has a President's party had that kind of numerical leverage in the Senate.
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