Top 10 Political Defections
Republican apostate Arlen Specter's move to join the Democrats has shaken Congress, but he's not alone. Over the years, scores of politicians have danced from one side of the aisle to the other. TIME rounds up the top 10 political defections in U.S. history.
The daughter of a Republican father and a Democratic mother, in 1960 13-year-old Hillary Rodham canvassed for Richard Nixon on Chicago's South Side. She also worked as a "Goldwater girl" in the 1964 presidential election — cowgirl outfit and all — and was elected president of the Wellesley Young Republicans as a freshman the following year. "I'm a heart liberal, but a mind conservative," she wrote to a high school friend during college. By graduation, the young leader had decided to follow her heart, stepping down from her GOP post because of her views on civil rights and the Vietnam War and throwing her support behind Eugene McCarthy for President. In 1972, she campaigned for unsuccessful presidential hopeful George McGovern — with the help of her new boyfriend, Bill Clinton.
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