Yes, it happened almost twenty years ago, with the controversial and sharply acrimonious Anita Hill hearings beginning October 11, 1991, but the memories of many Pennsylvania feminists along with other Democratic Party activists are long.

It was one thing for President Obama and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell to back Senator Arlon Specter for reelection after he switched parties and became a Democrat.  It was an entirely different matter for the state's progressive activists to accept their recommendation, as evidenced by his defeat and the uphill and ultimately decisive victory of Congressman Joe Sestak.

Specter prior to his career in elective politics was a Philadelphia prosecutor.  He used his adversarial interrogation skills against Anita Hill as she offered testimony into the Senate hearings for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.

The tactics used by Specter and Republican pro-Thomas advocate Orrin Hatch were deemed so odious by Senator Ted Kennedy that near their end he charged in a tone laced with bitter emotion that the "treatment of Ms. Hill was disgraceful."  When Hatch chimed in a quick objection, Kennedy repeated, "Yes, the treatment was disgraceful."

In the days when monarchies ran nations a term that became notable was that of "marriage of convenience."

This element occurred when nations decided that it would be in their respective best interests to have prominent families from different nations join forces in matrimony for mutual political convenience.  It was a way of obtaining a geopolitical foothold into an additional nation at the very least and more through formation of alliances.

An alliance of modern political convenience occurred when veteran Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania decided to switch parties and become a Democrat.  

Since Obama's political team was shrewd enough to catapult a junior  senator of four years of a national political career into the White House,  all essential points were covered in discussions with Specter and his team before the veteran solon made his announcement that has left Washington buzzing with speculation ever since.