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Today's Gop: Set Up To Self-immolate

I missed this yesterday:

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), who broke with his party to support President Obama's stimulus package last week, said before the final vote Friday that more of his colleagues would have joined were they not afraid of the political consequences.

"When I came back to the cloak room after coming to the agreement a week ago today," said Specter, "one of my colleagues said, 'Arlen, I'm proud of you.' My Republican colleague said, 'Arlen, I'm proud of you.' I said, 'Are you going to vote with me?' And he said, 'No, I might have a primary.' And I said, 'Well, you know very well I'm going to have a primary.'"

Question: Suppose the other GOP senator voted for the stimulus and ended up losing in a primary. Do you think his primary opponent would be more or less likely to hold the seat in a general?

(Via Andrew.)

--Noam Scheiber