Frankly, I believe that if Snowe decides to back the final bill she has in effect decided to become a Dem and will do so for real within the year.

She's no moderate. I fear she'd just help the Baucus crowd in their efforts to destroy our majority from within.

In many ways her reasons for becoming and staying a Republican "you know, limited government, individual opportunities, fiscal responsibility, and a strong national defense" have been abandonded by the current Republican party. Her reasons, which sound like pretty good basic principles to me, sound more like principles found in the present Democratic party than the Republican theocracy. Democratic party = big tent. Republican party = white old mens club.

The real question is what she will do when the attacks from the real republican party of Beck, Limpballs, Insannity & Dobbs start in 5...4...3...2...1!

When those reach a peak over the next few days to a week or two, will she do the standard rethug thing and apologize & say she was misunderstood or will it push her over the limits where she would have a more receptive mind to switching parties?

With Snarlin' Arlen & Joe LIEberman & the corporately owned senators in the dumbocrap party, she must realize that any views go as a dumb!

snowe would fit right in with the current democratic party... just, you know, a huge waste.

If you can't take the hate get out of America...

Well you know Pelosi teared up yesterday...
My initial reaction was "spine up."

But then I realize two things:

1) Everything Pelosi said were the very things we have been saying about hate radio and hate tv.

2) Pelosi is probably getting reams of hate mail and death threats generated by hate radio and hate tv.

What applies to Pelosi applies to Snowe.
I imagine her inbox looks a lot like the 9/12 signage.

Why wouldn't it be better if Senator Snowe left the Republicans to form a REAL alternative party, rather than join the Democrats?

There used to be national Republican party, with a moderate wing that was heavily represented on the East Coast, particularly in NY and New England, and a more conservative, particularly western wing. The South was solidly Democratic, but southern Democrats were very different from the rest of the party: southern Democrats tended to be racist white supremacists (think Bilbo and Thurmond).

When moderate Republicans, led by Illinois' Dirksen, the national Republican's shepherd in the Senate, joined with most of the Democratic party to enact civil rights, LBJ famously said that Democrats had lost the South for a generation. (He underestimated.) It's not too much to say that the next generation of the southern Democrats became Republicans, e.g., Trent Lott, who had worked for one of the last of the southern Democrats, and wound up a leader of the Republican party in both the House AND the Senate.

So the Republicans have become an almost exclusively southern and western party. Why wouldn't it be better for the country if someone like Snowe, and others tagged by the "corporate libertarian" wing (the Club for Growth crowd) as RINOs, simply left the party that has abandoned them, and ran for election as who they really are -- moderate northeastern conservatives?

Put it this way: what's wrong with a genuinely regional, and ideologically consistent political party creating a voting coalition in Congress?

"Put it this way: what's wrong with a genuinely regional, and ideologically consistent political party creating a voting coalition in Congress?"

Good point, theAmericanist. And I've got a name for this 'new' party. Independent.

-We've got the Black Caucus,the Blue Dogs, and now the Hispanic Caucus, so why not have the few independents in congress coalesce into a bloc?
Europe has numerous groups that wield power in their governments. Why not here; because the Two Party system sure isn't working. . .

I prefer to hear a semblance of humility from the party of arrogance . The fecund odour that rises from their general verbal deposits leaves everything , aside from the wheat , so much less civilised .

I'd like to see Snowe (and Collins) make that "short walk" to the only sane major party in the U.S.

A third party has never been viable for 3 reasons:

1) Big Money

2) More Big Money, and

3) You guessed it, even more Big Money.

Contributors are generally business people without a wish to flush their hard-earned (or stolen or scammed) money down the toilet.

But when the basis of a party is "I want everyone but me to pay taxes," you get 2 types of people involved in that party. The people smart enough to make big money or hold on to inherited wealth will be the leaders. The troops will be people stupid enough to vote against their own interests as long as they believe the lies of their party leaders. Scapegoats, distractions, and "The Big Lie" propaganda are the tools used to engage the stupid (or ill-informed), given historic context.

So Snowe (and Collins) have to judge if the voters in Maine are stupid enough to vote against their self interest. If not, one or both may make that walk.

@theAmericanist-- I agree. If the New England moderate Repubs (and Dems!) split off to form a new party, and that party eventually grew, then we could actually have a healthy national debate again. It's good to have a multiple party system, in which a loyal opposition rationally argues for its views, without name-calling or tantrums or answering to extreme fringe elements. If the ghost of Rockefeller Republicanism were to live on in the form of a new party, that would be healthy for our democracy.

I doubt she will ever become a Democrat. The more likely route for her would be to become an Independent.

Snowe, if she switches parties, only makes the Democrats that much more conservative. Nobody seems to notice how the welcoming of center-right former Republicans into the Democratic Party is squeezing the progressives out. We still have a two party system - a conservative majority party, and a radical nativist minority party similar to the European National Front parties. Liberals are increasingly on the outside looking in.

Would Snowe be more comfortable on the right of the Democratic party (meaning she'll feel pressure to go leftward) than she is on the left of the Republican party (meaning she feels pressure to go rightward)?

I'm sure she looks at Arlen Specter and asks herself if she wants to go there. My guess is 'no'-- but, as ever, I could be wrong.

I heard a few talking head comments about President Obama speaking at the Specter fundraisers, like, "did he really HAVE to do this." I know Senator Snowe is not due for re-election soon, but her party seems mired in insanity. She only has to look to Rhode Island to see what might happen in her next election. She can't help but have noticed the support being given to Specter. I always wonder if Lincoln Chaffee doesn't have moments when he thinks," What if I had..."

Yes, Sen. Snowe, your party has changed. Joe Conason explained it well a couple of days ago, "what was once the party of Lincoln has veered closer and closer to the ideology of his assassin."

She'll switch right around the same time as the heat-death of the sun.

She made her bones under Bill Cohen (ex R-ME), her husband is the state's last Republican governor, and she considers herself the keeper of the non-loony, Margaret-Chase-Smith GOP flame.

Instead of changing parties, she'll remain a nominal Republican, and wait for the current fever to burn itself out. It's her Party, and some day all those loonies will go away, and it will be her party again. In Maine, it's never not been her party -- hardliners like James Longley Jr. come and go, but Olympia goes on forever.

She won't switch, ever. I don't expect her to even become an independent.

I don't have the numbers to hand & am too lazy to look them up, but her continued association with Republicans has hurt her in Maine. And they should. This woman can sit down & say she's for "limited govt" after rubber-stamping the Bush years? Why didn't the "reporter" call her out about that? He didn't want to hurt her feelings? He was afraid of "losing access"? What? Because, you know, we can't move to a higher level of political discourse as long as elected officials are not actually challenged on their lies.

And yes, saying you're in favor of "limited government" after voting for everything Dubya wanted counts as a lie.

Third party? Great! And the Blue Dogs corporate-dems can defect to it. That ought to make it large and viable enough to keep it from effectively ensuring single-party (Democratic) dominance for the forseeable future.

Unfortunately, the Republicans have the DINOs to help them discredit the effectiveness of the Democratic party in general. If the Democrats don't figure out some way to pull it together, don't expect them to make any more gains in the Senate in 2012. Hell, especially if the SCOTUS rules to open the floodgates to corporate spending in elections, they probably even stand to lose some seats.

I understand the apparent political expediency of accepting them into the caucus, but between the Dixiecrats and the Blue Dogs, I hope the Democratic party has finally learned that there are serious drawbacks to being all-inclusive, and that the bigger the tent, the stronger and more resilient its structural framework needs to be.

" .... a conservative majority party, and a radical nativist minority party ... Liberals are increasingly on the outside looking in."

I think this gets the dynamic wrong.

Just as it would be better to expand the House of Representatives, so that (for example) minorities would be decisive in many Congressional districts, rather than dominant in a few, the key to the dynamic here is leverage.

For want of a better term, "liberals" are the agenda setters in the Democratic party: getting out of Iraq, health insurance reform, immigration, etc., are generally defined now by liberals.

But there aren't (and it is unlikely there ever will be) liberal majorities for what we want on any of 'em. So don't dis having enough power to set the agenda, just because it's not enough power to write the solutions.

For Snowe herself (rather than "liberals" in general), it's a simple question: does she have more influence, is she more of a veto, as half of the last two moderate Northeastern Republicans, OR is she more influential as another moderate Northeastern Democrat, OR as the new leader of an independent party -- which would start with one Senate seat?

Her maximum potential influence is in the third option: like Sanders (or even, ye gods, Lieberman) with the Democrats (there's already a Senate model), she might vote with Republicans on organization issues, but feel free to vote as she chooses on other issues.

But where Sanders is generally a solid vote for Democrats on cloture, for example, Lieberman is not. Would an independent Snowe be any less likely to end a Republican filibuster, than a Democratic Snowe?

The key for Snowe's influence (if she WOULD leave the GOP, which I personally think is unlikely), would be whether she brought her Maine colleague along, and if her example were to help other regional moderates. It obviously didn't save Chris Shays and Lincoln Chaffee -- and since the breed is extinct outside exotic Maine, would her independence revive it?

LOL -- hell, if we're gonna speculate, what're the odds of a Snowe drift in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, or Connecticut? Real elections, real candidates?

I don't have the numbers to hand & am too lazy to look them up, but her continued association with Republicans has hurt her in Maine.

60-36%, 1994
69%-31%, 2000
74%-26%, 2006

She can lose 20 percentage points, and still win in a blowout.

The ideal that including center right dems is squeezing liberals (I hate the word progressive for reasons peculiar to my home state) out is ridiculous. Liberalism has a strong voice in the party, and the inclusion of other, non-liberal voices, makes the debate that much more vigorous and productive. The critical distinction to adminision to the democratic party is whether the individual is serious about governing, if not, go join the party of no. If yes, I think its a very healthy debate to discuss the limits of government in the context of a complex society. Snowe has been consistently principled in representing her constituents. I doubt she switches, but, if she did, she would be a welcomed addition. Same goes for Specter. These are capable public servants who have often taken unpopular positions based on principle.
Just because I disagree with them is no reason to exclude them from the Party.

"limited government, individual opportunities, fiscal responsibility, and a strong national defense"?

Bush didn't support ANY of those things, and actively dismantled some of them, and Snowe largely rubberstamped his policies. She's the good little wife who won't resign from the country club no matter how odious its policies are, but she tips the help well at Christmas and thinks that sets her apart. It doesn't.

Thanks Davis. :-) I do know a lot of Mainers (mostly true liberals, who as you might expect are not fans of Snowe's). And I know Snowe appeared at a local festival along the Mid-Coast and was heckled by constituents about her stance on health care reform. She didn't even bother to look their way, which pissed them off very much.

I think it must have been Collins who won by her smallest margin last time out. It was still a handy win, of course, but most Mainers are not in agreement with the stances held by their senators.

Just as most Americans will vote against their best interests if they are sufficiently confused.

As far as new parties go, I'd like to see a party that actually embraces the ideals & general platform of Dems circa 1930-1950, while also updated to reflect the progress (some real, some imagined) that's been made since.

Most Democrats in office these days are awful & are wholly owned by corporate interests and I think it's disgusting. That's been the bailiwick of the Repubs for a long time, but they've strayed into Crazyville, so now the big businesses have had to buy Dems instead.

The Democratic Party does not need another Blue Dog.
When Snowe comes up for re-election she will be challenged by someone even further to the right, will lose, and the victor will go on to be defeated by a Democrat in the General. Inviting her into the Democratic Party now would be just one more suicidal act by a Party that is already resting comfortably on its death bed.

Tend to think this is the equivalent of a brush back from a pitcher -- and in this case, the brush back is to those idiots, like DeMint, who keep more or less threatening her with retaliation if she votes for health care reform, telling them that she is not without her own retaliatory weapons.

The problem is, Mainers hate politicians. We've had two independen governors in the last 30 years. Perot beat Bush pérè here in '92. Both Maine senators do a remarkable job of not looking, sounding, or acting like politicians.

Snowe has the safest seat in the Senate.

Collins could be picked off -- polling internals suggest that cross-over votes from Democratic women make her look stronger than she is essentially, and they should be able to be peeled off -- eventually. If the other senator in the state was, say, a Tom Andrews, she'd already be gone -- people think they're getting two Snowes.

Collins' entire career is based on being not-Joe-Brennan, and a Green candidate (Rensenbrink). That won her her first election, and incumbents once in -- especially in the Senate -- are hard to dislodge. Normally you've got to not just suck, you have to Santorum-suck, to lose a Senate seat. This go-round is different, I expect a throw-the-bums-out wave to claim Bennett (CO), Dodd (CT) and a couple others....

Of course, the Democratic party has changed, too, and the more it courts the Specters, Snowes, and Collinses the less room there is in the tent for people like myself. I don't even identify myself as a Democrat anymore, and I checked to see if I could register as an independent. I'm a liberal and a progressive and the Democrats only want me to shut the fuck up, open my wallet, and vote for them.

So don't dis having enough power to set the agenda, just because it's not enough power to write the solutions.

Liberalism has a strong voice in the party, and the inclusion of other, non-liberal voices, makes the debate that much more vigorous and productive.

I dunno, am I the only one around here that's bothered because single-payer healthcare can't get passed? That's what I call vigorous liberalism. The economic crisis continues, regardless of what you hear on TV, and the traditional Wall Street approaches just aren't going to cut it. A strong, vigorous liberalism provides alternatives, instead of just fiddling around the edges.

When was the last time a conservative/Republican policy position turned out to be correct? Let's see?

Trickle down economics? No.

Washington global economic consensus? No.

Corporate deregulation? No.

Financial services deregulation? No.

Insurance industry deregulation? No.

Big pharma deregulation? No.

Federal regulatory agency budget cuts? No.

Tax cuts for the rich? See trickle down economics.

Axis of evil foreign policy? No, no, and hell no!

Looking into eyes foreign policy? No.

Massaging shoulders foreign policy? No.

Coalition of the willling? Don't make me laugh.

So my question for Collins and Snowe is the same. Given the clear failure of Republican notions like small government, exhorbitant defense spending, and a dog eat dog social norm dressed up as individual responsibility, why are you still a Republican?

Hatch, DeMint and Kyl all made statements yesterday that were pretty thinly veiled threats to Snowe. I'm wondering how much of HER comments were her version of telling those guys to back off.

My guess is she won't become a Democrat.
She has far more influence among the Democratic party as a possible supporter from the 'other side' than she'll ever have as another center-right member of it.

"It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to... You would cry too if it happened to you,"

"am I the only one around here that's bothered because single-payer healthcare can't get passed? "

"Single-payer can't get passed."

Fixed it for ya.

It's a sort of philosophical question, if ya like, the kind that political "science" would answer, if it was actually a science: say you're a popular Senator who wins re-elections easily but you're way out of step with your national party, that no longer represents any part of your region: what is your best option?

Me, I think the key word in that is "region". So long as what Snowe (and Collins) represent is Maine, and only Maine -- that is, so long as she is a political machine unto herself, there is no real ambition for her to leave the party, no matter how far the national GOP leaves her out.

I suppose the Republican Caucus in the Senate could decide to throw her out, but that's unlikely. I doubt they'd even vote to take her seniority if she voted to kill a GOP filibuster, for example. Maybe if she voted for health care on reconciliation?

IF political science was really a science, there would be a simple, historically-supported set of data (that is, people would cite Jim Jeffords, or, hell, the 1938 chairman of the House Rules Committee, John O'Connor) to show how a Senator Snowe could maximize her influence within the Senate as a whole, and perhaps across her region and the country, by either remaining a Republican, becoming a Democrat, or running as an Independent.

But I don't think there is such data -- the Jeffords example doesn't illuminate much, and how anybody gets re-elected, particularly a Senator, depends a lot more on individual characteristics and networks than on party affiliation. That is, it's the candidate, not the party, that raises the dough.

That might seem to indicate that Snowe COULD thrive as an Independent, especially if she became a regional leader: but that's not her, now is it? And it isn't her region, either -- her example didn't save her Senate colleagues Chaffee and Jeffords nor the last moderate New England Republican in the House, Chris Shays, and I don't see candidates in her style in Massachusetts, New Hampshire or Connecticut.

Is there data I don't know about?

The Left hasa 60 senators plus a huge House majority and they STILL can't get their legislation passed. Know why? It's because this is a Center-Right country and the legislation is waaaay too far Left. I love how the sock puppets on this thread think the Dems are failing because they're not far enough Left. Dream on.

The other thing I find amusing is the Left's musings about picking off one or two more Republican Senators like Snowe. What they SHOULD be discussing is how they're going to hang on to those 48 purple House seats they currently occupy. 48 Dem seats...from districts that voted for McCain. Think those seats will stay Dem in 2010? If I was a googley eyed Leftist, that's what I'd be thinking about. But...then again...that's part of being a Leftist; utter blindness to the practical effects of your extreme ideology.

Snowe's my Senator. She says "you know" all the time. I wouldn't read anything into that. She's married to a former Republican Governor and House member, John McKernan, and is an institution in the Maine Republican Party. She gets the votes of independents and some Democrats, and she'll cruise to re-election. I'd be very surprised if she switched parties.

Having said that, I should also add that I think it is very possible, even likely, that she will support a health care reform bill this year. She clearly supports the concept, and if it has the "trigger" for the public option, I bet she votes "yes."

John R. - Hurry up or your going to be late for school? God I hate when the kids get hold of the computer.

JohnR

Riddle me this. If the country is so center-right, why did it elect as its president, by your own pundits metric, the most liberal senator in the senate. Why did it toss Lincoln Chaffee, the poster child for "center-right?" Why did your last "center-right" senator, Arlen Specter move to center-left?

I'll help you out.

There is no center-right, at least they're no longer represented outside of Maine.

There is in this country the extreme left (Kucinich), the left (Pelosi), the center-left(Baucus), and the extreme right (Boner, and You lie Wilson) and the batshit crazy wingnut right (Bachmann, Demint). You will note there is consederable diversity on the left side.

JohnR - Ha! Great satire!

Republicans have Rush, Glen, Sean, & Mark Levin. They have DeMint and Coburn and Tancredo, too.

So obviously, the Left has the extreme ideology.

If it wasn't snark, John, you're an idiot. But thanks for playing.

I'm still laughing....

John has a sort of bizarre notion of what "the Left" means, but he DOES have one particular fact correct: 48 House Democrats won in districts that voted for Bush and McCain.

And Democrats have only a 40 seat majority.

If you can't do political math, you don't count.

Snowe should join the Lieberman Party. It needs a politician with some integrity.

Arlen Specter was very blunt in saying that the reason he switched parties is because he could not have been re-elected as a Republican. As long as Snowe can be re-elected as a Republican, she should stay one. I, a Democrat, would rather have at least a few liberal/moderate Republicans than none at all. The Republican Party, though as Loud as usual, is going quickly from being irrelevant to being a big joke. Republicans with any sense of ethics, morals, decency, fairness, and common sense will leave the party, if not in droves, then little by little until all that's left is self-righteous, holier-than-thou bullies. They will Still be Loud, but they will have Zero influence in politics.

Olympia's been in the Senate a long time. A lot of the folks she served with have moved on or passed on. I can't imagine that she'd run again, so it's maybe a little more complicated brush back. If she were to decide that she wanted to resign and enjoy her retirement (which you would think she would want to do given what a depressing spectacle Congress is at the moment), Maine has a Democratic governor who would, I believe, appoint the successor. She could open the door to at least a temporary Democratic 60th vote. I assume the RNC knows that Maine won't elect a Conservative Republican (Collins is sui generis, not representative of others' prospects.)

Whoever pointed this out is correct: the more conservatives the Democratic party has, the more to the right it will go. Michael Barone wrote an interesting column a few weeks ago (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/13/when_liberal_leaders_confront_a_centrist_nation_97873.html) about how there are more Democrats than liberals and more conservatives than Republicans. Democrats, to be a viable majority party, have to spread the tent outside of pure progressivism. However, Republicans are more homogeneously on the right, meaning that they can get legislation passed a lot more easily when they are in power, since the internal squabbling is minimal. You rarely have Republicans sniping at each other and breaking ranks the way that progressives and Blue Dogs do for the Democrats.

Anyway, I think it's next to impossible that Snowe would switch parties, since she would gain nothing from becoming a Democrat (the way that Specter did--maybe, since even now he's in trouble in some polls). She'd only be pulled left, which, according to her statements, she'd probably be more uncomfortable with. If she's for limited government, the arms of the Democrats are certainly not where she will want to go. The fact that she voted for many of Bush's initiatives that weren't consistent with conservative, limited-government beliefs in no way implies that she will find a better home in Obama's even-bigger-government party.

Of course, the fact that she's entertaining the thought of a $1 trillion health care bill and voted for a $787 billion stimulus makes me question whether she's really for limited government and fiscal restraint. I ask the same question about the numerous 'conservatives' who voted for George Bush's absurdly irresponsible budgets and costly wars...

that's part of being a Righty, Wingnut, Moron; utter blindness to the practical effects of your extreme ideology.

Fixed.

Please see list above from Winkandanod.

I thought Barone's better insight is that while in the country as a whole, beginning with Obama, liberals set the agenda but have to compromise to get anything done, in the Congress, particularly in the House, the liberals are in a position to write the legislation but, because they are to the left of their caucus, not to mention the country, they haven't yet figured out how to govern.

The thing is, this political situation was routine a couple of generations ago -- but I didn't notice Sam Rayburn flailing around. Have we simply forgotten how to legislate?

Most of the Democrats who chair House Committees are elected from districts that vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. That SHOULD suggest that they can go pretty far to the right to accomodate the fifth to a quarter of their caucus elected in Republican districts. In the olden days, the active role played by a moderate (northern and eastern) Republican wing meant that as the majority Democrats would generally frame legislation, compromise on the margin with moderate Republicans and frame the debate to give conservative Democrats a few votes they could say "no" and get re-elected on.

But what it has generally meant lately is that Democrats can't seem to get out of their own way, so the 48 elected from Republican districts keep asking for Republicans to help frame Democratic bills to give 'em cover.

WWSRD? What would Sam Rayburn do?

For those such as newamericanist who have suggested that a northeastern moderate-conservative third party would not be a bad thing, I agree in principle but not in reality. Any party that had as its basis self-identification as a regional bloc would be a problem and could actually further exacerbate the current dysfunction.

It would be not unlike a group of hyper-conservative southern senators deciding to operate as a regional bloc. Not that that would EVER happen. . . .

So if saying "you know" is a sign of "nervousness", what does that say about Obama? Whats he so nervous about?

"[I] became a Republican when I registered to vote.And that is limited, you know, limited government, individual opportunities, fiscal responsibility, and a strong national defense.

No possible way this view will be accomodated by democrats. This is completely the opposite of what democrats believe.

"As we talked about yesterday, Snowe is the only Senate Republican willing to negotiate in good faith with Democrats on health care reform...".

You think so, do you? I don't believe it for a second. And even then, what if she is? One lousy senator out of the whole rotten bunch. Why should Obama or Reid give a rat's ass what she does or doesn't have to say about anything? She should be ignored along with the rest of the republican swineherd.

I believe that technically it is not the pigs, but a a pig farmer, someone who tries to move swine, that is a "swineherd". The pigs being moved in some attempt at an organized fashion, are a "drove" or a "passel".

So as I understand it, the appropriate application to the Senate GOP would be this: when a number of pigs, particularly wild ones, are wandering aimlessly, or obstinately refusing to move: they are called a "sounder".

And lord knows, they're noisy.

To me this was Snowe telling the GOP hardliners to back off, or watch her go independent. She could do that pretty easily, and Maine would probably like her better that way. I don't see her going all the way to being a Democrat, but Independent status would be perfectly viable. I think she wants to vote for healthcare reform, and is not remotely interested in being part of the Party of No that currently constitutes the GOP. My guess is that the GOP will back off, Snowe will vote for healthcare reform, and after the usual denunciations things will go on as before - unless she is sufficiently angered by the abuse to drop the GOP label.

Nickzi comes close to my first reaction, except that it feels like an excellent way to begin negotiations with the GOP leadership for a more influential role within the committees - more than she already has, which IS a lot.

Now, had she been a Democrat, Reid would have collapsed into the fetal position and thrown everything but the kitchen sink at her to keep her within the party - just look at the embarrassment illustrated by the insufferable Leiberman.

One has to wonder how many times a man has to be kicked in the balls before he wonders if retaining his leadership is actually worth it. God knows when Reid will finally sacrifice ambition for honor. I sincerely hope it's soon, for all our sakes.