# Olympia Snowe retiring **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [February 28, 2012, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292 "2012-02-28T22:52:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/21 "2012-02-29T02:23:07Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > I have more respect for Senators that don’t cross the aisle because they’re real hyper-partisans and vote against things because they can’t see any middle ground. Why is that worthy of respect? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/22 "2012-02-29T02:24:16Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > When the Senate was 59-41, she could’ve pretty easily been the most powerful person in the country. Write her own legislation, get Reid and Obama to bring the Dems along and convince a few GOPers to cross with her. She did this to a degree during the health care and stimulus debates, but the picture you’re painting of the situation is not realistic. Snowe was on the fence and so were a couple of other moderates. She was not any more influential or powerful than any of the others and had no more ability than they did to bring people along. They each had to be won over individually, which is what happened on those bills. You don’t just win over another Senator by writing a bill the way you want and saying 'I’m to the right/left of you, so you should support this, too: you have to make it make sense for them to vote based on their own interests - the support of their own constituents and things of that nature. And yes, the party structure is a piece of that because if you lose the support of the party, you can get primaried. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/23 "2012-02-29T02:27:00Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > /// For people like Snowe and McCain and Graham, Collins and Luger, they’re not sticking by their party out of principal, they’re doing it because despite accepting a position in a legislative body, they’re too meek to actually take the responsibility of passing legislation. It’s because of people like these that _any_ legislation at all has got passed in the last two years. I find your argument absurd if I am interpreting it correctly – that the people who on occasion willing to cross party lines and vote against their party leadership are more responsible for the current stalemate than those who aren’t willing to do that. Tell me how I’m getting this wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/24 "2012-02-29T02:59:59Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Why is that worthy of respect? Well, “more respect”. I don’t particularly respect, say, J. Inofe’s view on abortion. I think he’s wrong, and wrong in a way that’s bad for his country. But I accept their his honestly held views and that he feels strongly about it in such a way that there isn’t room for much compromise. Just about everyone in the Senate is going to have things that they’re categorically against and some of those things I’m going to disagree with. So I respect that he has such views, and that he feels he can’t compromise, even if I don’t particularly respect his actual positions. And that’s fine, I’m sure if I was in the Senate, there would be some things I simply wouldn’t be willing to budge on. That shouldn’t be a huge problem, since to pass legislation you only need 60% of the Senate, and it shouldn’t be that hard to get 60 people out of 100 that can compromise their way to something, even if some people are set against it. But that only works if people that are closer to the middle, and who aren’t categorically against the bill in question are willing to take action, make changes, and get things through. That’s pretty much the entire job of being a legislator, and it bothers me that Snowe and other seem to have pretty much abdicated that job. In the case of the Healthcare bill, it was pretty clear that Snowe was generally OK with the concept of the bill. And her negotiating position was strong enough that if there were some things she didn’t like, she didn’t even need to compromise, the Dems would’ve made pretty much any change to get her support. She passed it out of Conference talking about how historic the bill was. But in the end, she decided she’d rather play the hyper-partisan then legislate. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/25 "2012-02-29T06:38:49Z")
Good for Senator Snowe. Washington Republicans have gone from innumerate to batshit insane and its past time for any nondelusional conservative with self respect to bolt out of the party. It’s time for them to start afresh, just like the liberal Whigs did when they became Republicans. [Jon Chait](http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/02/will-olympia-snowe-join-americans-elect.html) notes that Snowe’s resignation language exactly parallels that of the empirical conservative party, Americans Elect. Democrats are a big tent of liberals, moderates and conservatives. Republicans used to be that way in the 1960s. Then they dumped their liberals in the 1970s and purged their ranks of moderates in the 1990s and 2000s. All that are left are crazies and those afraid of being primaried by crazies. It’s time to clean house. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/26 "2012-02-29T12:38:29Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > … All that are left are crazies and those afraid of being primaried by crazies. It’s time to clean house. I think they’ve done more than enough “house cleaning”. What they need is a lot more clutter. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/27 "2012-02-29T12:53:37Z")
This could make Susan Collins weak as well. She’s basically been Olympia Jr. for the last 14 years. The tide could wash over her too. And I don’t think our governor, LePage, is going to serve but one term either. He pretty much got Nadered into office and he’s ruffling all sorts of feathers. Interesting turn of events. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/28 "2012-02-29T13:43:24Z")
> [@Jack\_Batty](#): > > This could make Susan Collins weak as well. She’s basically been Olympia Jr. for the last 14 years. The tide could wash over her too. What tide? Snowe is stepping down because she doesn’t want to be a Senator anymore, not because she’s “weak”. She and Collins have the best approval ratings of any sitting Senators, Snowe had to run for re-election in the worst year for Republicans since Watergate and still won 75% of the vote. The tea-parties brief attempt to primary Snowe went no where. Both woman are pretty much immune to electoral challenges. Collins will be in the Senate until she decides she doesn’t want to be in the Senate anymore. ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/29 "2012-02-29T13:45:17Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > That shouldn’t be a huge problem, since to pass legislation you **only need 60%** of the Senate, and it shouldn’t be that hard to get 60 people out of 100 that can compromise their way to something, even if some people are set against it. Somewhat off topic - but that is the problem with the Senate. You shouldn’t need 60% to pass most things in the Senate. I’m not sure of the exact timeline, so the Democrats may have started using the filibuster more when they initially lost the majority, but the Republican’s have made it so that everyone just agrees that, yeah, you need 60%. It’s become the new normal, and, given the Republican whip discipline, it _is_ hard to reach that threshold. Plus, of course, it also gives the fringe Democrats (Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman) and the ‘moderate’ Republicans the ability to demand goofy things for their votes. If I remember correctly, Nelson originally had some sort of Nebraska exemption in the ACA, as an example of what happens. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/30 "2012-02-29T14:01:56Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > What tide? Snowe is stepping down because she doesn’t want to be a Senator anymore, not because she’s “weak”. She and Collins have the best approval ratings of any sitting Senators, Snowe had to run for re-election in the worst year for Republicans since Watergate and still won 75% of the vote. The tea-parties brief attempt to primary Snowe went no where. Both woman are pretty much immune to electoral challenges. > > Collins will be in the Senate until she decides she doesn’t want to be in the Senate anymore. I’m suggesting that Olympia’s stepping down could create a tide. Yes, Collins has always been sympathetic to the left somewhat, but she always had the aura of riding Snowe’s coat-tails, like one came with the other. With Snowe retiring, we could see a sea-change in this state, and you might see two Democratic Senators before too long. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [February 29, 2012, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/31 "2012-02-29T16:44:01Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Well, “more respect”. I don’t particularly respect, say, J. Inofe’s view on abortion. I think he’s wrong, and wrong in a way that’s bad for his country. But I accept their his honestly held views and that he feels strongly about it in such a way that there isn’t room for much compromise. No respect is due to an honestly held but wrong view ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/32 "2012-03-01T03:08:51Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > you have to make it make sense for them to vote based on their own interests - the support of their own constituents and things of that nature. And yes, the party structure is a piece of that because if you lose the support of the party, you can get primaried. _ **but she quit anyway.** _ > [@Simplicio](#): > > I have more respect for Senators that don’t cross the aisle because they’re real hyper-partisans and vote against things because they can’t see any middle ground. For people like Snowe and McCain and Graham, Collins and Luger, they’re not sticking by their party out of principal, they’re doing it because despite accepting a position in a legislative body, they’re too meek to actually take the responsibility of passing legislation. You make a fair point. Lugar (who I liked for Prez in '96) might have been a better President than whatever he is now. But perhaps a man as meek (or modest?) as that had no chance to win. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/33 "2012-03-01T03:39:48Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Good for Senator Snowe. Washington Republicans have gone from innumerate to batshit insane and its past time for any nondelusional conservative with self respect to bolt out of the party. To where? ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/34 "2012-03-01T04:21:07Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > To where? Right. To retirement. Too many bridges burnt by the last 18 months of Tea Partying to pull a Specter. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/35 "2012-03-01T04:23:01Z")
> [@YogSosoth](#): > > No respect is due to an honestly held but wrong view . . . . aaaaand this is why the nation is so polarized. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/36 "2012-03-01T04:32:13Z")
I can retain respect when we are discussing ideas in the abstract, moot, or libertarian mode. When it gets toward things that are genuinely harmful, like restrictions on women’s health, I don’t feel so obliged. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/37 "2012-03-01T06:43:12Z")
[Cogent analysis from _The Nation:_](http://www.thenation.com/blog/166523/olympia-snowe-and-misdiagnosing-gridlock) > [@](#): > > In her announcement, Snowe—a noted moderate—cited the “partisanship of recent years in the Senate” to explain why she was suddenly throwing in the towel. Given that her staff didn’t even know about her retirement until the day she announced it, I have a hunch there’s something else at play here, but that’s neither here nor there—the loss of a moderate, who blames nasty partisanship for her demise, is catnip for much of the Beltway press. Many of them stick rigidly to the doctrine of false balance, in which both sides of the political spectrum are always equally to blame for… everything, and that includes the recent gridlock in Congress. Snowe’s retirement has given them a great opportunity to wisely tut-tut about how broken Washington has become, and say that everyone just needs to get along. > > Politico’s Jonathan Allen published a piece that epitomizes this genre today. The article, “The center crumbles,” laments that “Congress can’t find the middle ground because no one’s willing and able to stand there anymore." > > > [@](#): > > > > For some like Snowe, the question is, why bother? The prospect of running hard to win another term—particularly a six-year Senate term—is less and less attractive for folks who came to Washington to make things happen only to find out there’s no common ground to get things done, only partisan point-scoring that leads to paralyzed politics.… > > > > But it’s harder and harder for members of Congress to get along in their own caucuses, to prevent or win primary challenges and to excite their party base in general elections if they find too much in common with the other side. > > What Allen’s piece, and many similar analyses, fail to point out is that only _one_ political party has become more extreme and more partisan in recent years: the GOP. Political science professor Keith Poole conducted a comprehensive study that plotted every Congressional vote from 1879 to 2011 along ideological axes, and found that around 1980, Republicans veered sharply right, with no corresponding leftward shift from Democrats. In 2011, the partisan Republican (the “90 percent” Republican) is almost at the limit of conservative ideology, while the partisan Democrat is much further from the leftward extreme—and has barely shifted in the past thirty years. This analysis shows what we can see to be anecdotally true every day: while the Republicans are lockstep behind privatizing Medicare, there isn’t even close to Democratic consensus that Medicare should be extended to everyone. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/38 "2012-03-01T07:02:01Z")
[This](http://www.thenation.com/blog/166504/exit-maines-olympia-snowe-creates-opening-chellie-pingree) is interesting: > [@](#): > > Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, is considering a run to replace Snowe. > > Pingree, the former president of Common Cause, is a serious progressive. As a Maine state legislator, she was a leader in the fight for healthcare reform. Now, Pingree’s an active member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who gets high marks—generally 100 percent ratings—from the AFL-CIO, NARAL Pro-Choice America and the League of Conservation Voters. She has also broken with the Obama administration, as is appropriate, on issues of war and peace, voting for the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and explicitly opposing the deployment of US ground troops to Libya. > > Pingree would go to the Senate as a savvy expert of a host of issues, including the campaign finance, media reform and net neutrality issues she worked on when she was with Common Cause. And she would be a likely leader on the left, with the potential—and the willingness—to stand beside Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders at the forefront of the fight for progressive policies and real reform. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2012, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/39 "2012-03-01T09:22:52Z")
Me: It’s time to clean house. > [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > I think they’ve done more than enough “house cleaning”. What they need is a lot more clutter. > [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > To where? > [@Brad DeLong](#): > > As I have written in the past: You know, I went to Washington in 1993 to work for what we called Lloyd Bentsen’s Treasury as part of the sane technocratic bipartisan center. And it took me only two months–two months!–to conclude that America’s best hope for sane technocratic governance required the elimination of the Republican Party from our political system as rapidly as possible. Dole and Gingrich’s “We really don’t care that these policies are good for the country–are a lot like policies we would enthusiastically support if proposed by a Republican president–but we are going to try to block them because that will weaken Clinton” wad a real eye-opener. Nothing since has led me to question or change that belief–only to strengthen it. We really need a very different opposition party to the Democrats: a less dishonorable one. [http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/02/where-were-you-in-1993-david-brooks.html](http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/02/where-were-you-in-1993-david-brooks.html) and > [@Brad DeLong](#): > > …few things would please me more than the electoral collapse of the Republican Party followed by a recognition that the next opposition party to the Democrats needs to turn over a new leaf, return to a base in reality, and no longer try to lie to all the people all of the time–about global warming, about health care, about how to finance the federal government, about whether Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction, and so forth. > > … As I have said before, within the Democratic Party caucus you can argue for rational policies that are in America’s interest–internationalism, expanded trade, balancing the budget, strengthening the safety net, improving the efficiency of the health care system, dealing with global warming, properly regulating the financial system, etc.–and you can usually win. The Democratic Party is, by and large, reality based. But the Republican Party is not reality-based. How long has it been since the rational technocratic faction of the Republican Party has won any internal argument? As more than one former Republican staffer has told me: “We did not raise any of those issues. It would have been a very short conversation.” > > The only constructive road I can see would be for the Republican Party to collapse, and then perhaps something good for America could be built on its foundations. [http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/05/mark-kleiman-was-snarky-last-night-long-run-fiscal-crisis-and-the-future-of-america-department.html](http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/05/mark-kleiman-was-snarky-last-night-long-run-fiscal-crisis-and-the-future-of-america-department.html) Admittedly, supporting a reality-based conservative think tank might be a reasonably start. But honestly, there’s nothing within the Washington Republican collective that is worth saving. I can point to honest attempts by Republicans to govern at the state level (as well as the opposite of course). But in Washington liberal Republicans went extinct in the 1970s and moderate Republicans -labeled insultingly by the crazies as RINOs- are thoroughly whooped. You know you have problems when after the worst financial crisis since WWII, the Senate holds up appointments to the US Treasury, not because the candidates are objectionable, but simply because they can. A party that mocks good governance deserves no votes. None. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [March 2, 2012, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292/40 "2012-03-02T03:55:00Z")
Everybody fails to note that in 2010 the moderate Republicans elected three new faces Ayotte of NH, Kirk of Illinois, and Brown of Massachusetts while Murkowski reasserted herself. They have potential for growth IMO especially if Rubio joins them and more new people get elected in 2012 and 2014. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/olympia-snowe-retiring/614292.md?page=3)