Today On TOTN: The Specter Switch

A philosophical question of sorts from Gary Apter of Boise, Idaho:

So, with Arlen Specter being a chameleon again, what does this say about party affiliation?

That's the question of the moment, and that's what we'll be focusing on today during the Political Junkie segment on NPR's Talk of the Nation.

It's not just what the Specter move means to politics, the Obama admnistration or the dwindling Republican Senate minority. There's a bigger question: How important is party allegiance anymore?

 

Plus: We have a new HHS secretary as well as a winner in NY 20 — and we'll hear from that winner, special guest Rep.-elect Scott Murphy (D).

Join host Neal Conan and me every Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET for the Junkie segment on TOTN, where you can often, but not always, find interesting conversation, useless trivia questions and sparkling jokes. And you can win a Political Junkie T-shirt!

And speaking of useless trivia, there was this question from Teri Young of Philadelphia:

What happened to you during [last week's] trivia question?

It certainly was confusing. The question was, name the last senator from Havana. It was actually a trick question; the answer was the late Sen. Scott Lucas (D-IL), from Havana, Ill. But precisely as we were going on the air, a producer was yelling in my ear that the answer should be John Sununu of New Hampshire!! Neal had no idea what was going on, and I was completely thrown off course.

As I finally got my wits together, it occurred to me that the Sununu the producer was thinking of was the senior John Sununu, the former governor and White House chief of staff who was indeed born in Havana, Cuba — but who was NOT a senator. His son, the younger John Sununu, was a senator, but he was born in Boston.

I have no idea how it sounded on the air. But for a few ugly minutes, it was completely chaos in Studio 3A. It was all so confusing that it felt to me like I was suddenly asked to defend Rod Blagojevich.

If you must, you can hear last week's segment here.

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