Netroots Nation: who won the healthcare tweet-off?

The 4th annual Netroots Nation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is America's most important gathering of liberal bloggers and activists. It wrapped up at the wekeend, but not before the heat of this summer’s political firestorms has already created some noteworthy moments, from a feisty appearance from a senior-senator-turned-junior-Democrat to a masters class in how to deal with hecklers from President Bill Clinton. We can only hope all those harried Democratic representatives and senators were watching.

Day 2 saw longtime Pennsylvania Republican and recently turned Democratic senator Arlen Specter make national news in a question and answer session, when he was asked about his friend, the lead Republican health care negotiator in the Senate, Chuck Grassley. Earlier in the week Grassley had accused Democrats of planning a “government run plan to decide when to pull the plug on grandma.” Specter said he would be glad to correct him, prompting the audience to hold their cell phones aloft and shout “call him now.” Senator Specter isn’t know as “Snarlin’ Arlen” for nothing and he seized the moment to point at the crowd and pointedly say “join me backstage and watch me dial him.”

True to his word, as soon as he was backstage, Specter called Grassley and left a voicemail message, as a group of bloggers and activists looked on and recorded video. Not yet satisfied, Specter took to Twitter, tweeting:

Called Senator Grassley to tell him to stop speading myths about health care reform and imaginary "death panels."

And a moment later:

Had to leave a message - for now. I will talk to him soon.

Then the fight really began.



A voracious tweeter himself, Senator Grassley immediately fired back on the social networking site, saying:

Specter got it all wrong that I ever used words "death boards". Even liberal press never accused me of that. So change ur last Tweet Arlen

By coming out swinging, Specter not only endeared himself to the partisan crowd, but  undercut his opponent in the forthcoming primary for his senate seat, Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak. Sestak went on stage to conduct his own Q & A just after Sen. Specter, by this stage back stage calling Grassley.

Specter joined the Democrats in April 2009 after almost thirty years as a Republican senator. He has more-or-less openly acknowledged that his motivation for switching parties was fear of an almost certain loss to conservative activist Pat Toomey in the upcoming Republican primary.

Specter was a rare moderate Republican in an increasingly conservative party and just barely survived a primary challenge, again from Toomey, in 2004. The key to his victory at the time was aggressive support from (then popular) President George W. Bush. Although Specter enjoys broad support from Democrats and Independents in Pennsylvania, he has always had a tough relationship with the conservative base, and had infuriated them past the point of reconciliation by joining Olympia Snowe of Maine as one of only two Republicans senators to vote for President Obama’s stimulus package this year.

His opportunism has angered some Democrats too, and inspired Rep. Sestak – a retired admiral and second term congressman – to jump into the race. But Specter’s performance, which included promises to support top Democratic priorities such as health care reform, a climate change bill, and a union-backed employee free choice act, combined with his deep base of support and incumbency, show that Sestak has his work cut out for him. And Specter's warm reception might just hold out a little hope that liberal and conservative democrats can hold it together after all.

Read my second update here.