Gaggling Specter

White House Press Secretary held a "gaggle" on the plane ride to Missouri today. This is, as far as I can tell, just an informal conversation.

Here is the section of the gaggle transcript which concerns Sen. Specter:

Q Robert, it's fairly unusual for a sitting President to basically endorse a candidate in a party primary. Can we expect President Obama to be doing more of the same in the next election cycle?

MR. GIBBS: I don't think it's at all irregular for a President to endorse an incumbent member of his own party even if it's a new member. I think you can go back and find a lot of examples of that.

The President is, as I said and he said yesterday, happy to have Senator Specter as a member of the Democratic Party, thrilled to have him, support him fully. He's made a decision of how to best represent the people he represents in Pennsylvania and we're happy that he did so.

Q Robert, to follow up on Ed's question, it was -- I think, seven minutes lapsed before the President was on the phone with Senator Specter saying he would support him in the primary --

MR. GIBBS: Seven minutes after he called him, yes.

Q Well, could you on that point say when did he have an inkling before that -- he thought it through? How did he arrive at the decision to offer that support, and did he consider supporting maybe a candidate who had been backed by the unions?

MR. GIBBS: No, he supported a -- he supported the, albeit new, member -- incumbent member of his party. There wasn’t any meeting about it. The President offered his support to Senator Specter and it's a commitment he'll keep.

Q Did he decide in that seven-minute span? I think he said no.

MR. GIBBS: My sense is it probably took him less than about seven seconds, so he might have had some extra time to think about other stuff.