I guess I was supposed to be surprised by Arlen Specter’s announcement earlier this week that he was eschewing the political party he’d called home for his five terms in the U.S. Senate in favor of a seat on the other side of the aisle.

Well, I wasn’t really. In fact, I think it’s about time he came out of the political closet.

There is, of course, much talk about the timing of the senator’s announcement. Up for his sixth term in office, he is facing opposition from within his own party in the form of the much more conservative Pat Toomey, a man who has already garnered support from Specter’s Republican colleagues on Capitol Hill.

Not to mention the fact that his Pennsylvanian constituents have gotten a bit “bluer” in recent years. (His approval rating among Republicans in his home state is only something like 30 percent.)

“I’m not prepared to have my 29-year record in the U.S. Senate decided by Pennsylvania Republicans in the primary electorate,” Specter said on Tuesday. I can’t help thinking that’s no way to talk about the people that kept him in Washington for nearly 3 decades, but who am I to judge. I’m not from the Keystone State.