1, 2 And 3, For Sure

No, I’m not perseverating. After Arlen’s Tuesday Coleman flip-flop — and this wonderfully telling morning photo — I’m still looking at Specter.

These politicians, especially after they’ve been around for, well, forever, are trained to ignore the cameras — unless it’s clearly a newsy moment. Sure, maybe Arlen just happened to glance this way; but then, maybe he’s also all-too-aware of the eyeballs trained on him. As well, what’s descriptive here is the spatial composition, as if the Republicrat — behind the two Democratic Senators, Shaheen and Webb — finds himself caught behind enemy lines.

My guess is that Specter never anticipated the psychological impact of jumping parties and is currently and frenetically “rapid cycling” between the stages of: 1.) denial and isolation, 2.) anger, 3.) bargaining, 4.) depression, and (not quite) 5.) acceptance.

(Susan Walsh/A.P. Republican-turned-Democrat Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa. , center, emerges from a Democratic policy luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, May 5, 2009)