Posted on 02/28/2012 7:19:43 PM PST by prairiebreeze
Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, who for 33 years in Congress has personified an increasingly unfashionable Republican centrism, said she won't seek re-election, taking a final shot at the Senate's partisanship.
"I do find it frustrating...that an atmosphere of polarization and 'my way or the highway' ideologies has become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions," she said Tuesday.
The decision, which took members of both parties by surprise, transforms this year's battle for the Senate. Democrats hold a 53-47 advantage in the chamber. But because they have to defend 23 seats to the Republicans' 10, most analysts have said the GOP has a good shot at retaking the Senate.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Olympia Snowe in NOT retiring ... she’s MELTING! :)
Related from last week?
Rats and Tommy Daschle are deeply saddened.
Could the old bag tell us which DEMOCRAT EVER VOTED against their Party's wishes on MAJOR Legislation, like SHE ALWAYS DID?
She finally thinks she’s destroyed enough.
Thank you suckers! :P
FYI
Who is available to run?
This b*tch did her damage by voting on Obamacare. I hope the worst for her..
Shove it up your Obama, Snowe.
Now Maine can vote for one of their true Dem hacks rather than a subterfuge RINO like Snowe. TERM LIMITS!
Olympia Snowe in NOT retiring ... she’s MELTING! :)/
Someone finally threw water on the old RINO. :)
Interesting about the $3.4 million....
Andrew Ian Dodge.....what a strange looking senator he’d make. LOL!
Although considering Al Franken....
This came out of nowhere. It’s too soon to say who will be running to succeed her. It’s highly unlikely that Governor Paul LePage will run.
WELL THANK GOD FOR SMALL FAVORS!!!!!
Savage is right, the only way she would retire is she knows she is going down to defeat.
Hmm...I don’t see her losing if she did run. I would say Democrats have a high chance of winning this seat. (R’s have a shot too). But R’s have a great chance of winning the Senate, so she’s doing everything possible to give this seat to the D’s.
She’s a Republican? When did she switch?
Guess the American people won’t get anymore SNOW JOBS from her anymore.
Maine will be a better state when she leaves politics. So will America.
She could have been a contender, but ended up a total loser.
LePage would be a kick-ass Senator...I wonder if he’ll go for it? Probably not.
She ended up voting against Obamacare.
Don’t let the screen door hit ya where the good Lord split ya...
Only after allowing it to come up with a prior vote, as I recall...
Quite possibly but Maine has gone GOP, surprisingly enough. There is hope.
she voted against Obamacare—all Republicans stuck together on that one. O’bummer was not able to call it bi-partisan
She did her damage by being the only Republican to vote Obamacare out of committee and unto the floor of the Democrat controlled Senate.
She is another on of the, "I voted for it before I voted against it" crowd.
Disgusting. And look at the damage she left behind.
Is that why she’s hanging it up?
That's right. She could have voted to kill the Senate bill in the Finance Committee, but instead voted to move it to the Senate floor.
Still, credit where it's due.
Is it possible that she has some backroom deals that she doesn’t want to see the light of day? Maybe she thinks the whole house of cards is gonna come tumbling down and she wants to get out with her gold plated retirement while she can....
I live in Maine, and if you think Olympia Snowe was bad, if this seat goes to a RAT, that individual would be much worse.
Snowe and Collins vote with the conservatives some of the time, as does Scott Brown in Mass. A democrap from either Maine or Mass. will vote with the conservatives 0% of the time. I know Brown has been rather disappointing, but could you imagine Martha Coakley or Elizabeth Warren in the Senate? Not a pleasant thought. Snowe, Collins and Brown in the end voted against Obamacare, although Snowe voted to get the bill out of committee for a vote.
First District Congresswoman Chellie Pingree is the one I worry about. She has already announced her intention to run for Snowe’s seat. Chellie Pingree is so far left she makes Olympia Snowe look like Sarah Palin in comparison. Worse yet, Pingree is married to a Wall Street billionaire, so she could pulverize her opponents financially with her husband’s money. Second District congressman Mike Michaud said he’s serious considering a run for Snowe’s seat, too. Another democrat hack.
There really aren’t any well-known Republicans available to make a run for this seat. We have a TEA Party conservative, Paul LePage, as our governor, but I would be surprised if he throws his hat in the ring.
When she participated with the Democrats to get it out of committee, the damage was done.
Once on the floor of the Democrat controlled Senate she could afford to vote "nay" to cover her rear end at home.
Are you that naive?
sorry - she voted against it
LePage has only held his current office for 13 months and is controversial (thought I think he’ll regain his popularity by 2014).
Here is a list of potential candiates:
http://news.yahoo.com/olympia-snowe-not-run-reelection-171707026.html
“Who is available to run?”
Check Posting #36.
Thanks, prairiebreeze.
_tupid _itch!
She thought about switching parties but got mad when someone asked her if she was going to become a Republican.
Mitt is popular back east. Perhaps he can move there and band up with his RINO buddies McCain and Graham in the senate.
All joking aside, now at least the Democrats will have to run a campaign in that state now that they lost a vote in the senate.
I'll spell it out for you.
Max americana clearly implied that Snowe had voted for Obamacare.
I responded that she "ended up" voting against Obamacare. The "ended up" was there because of her Finance Committee vote.
I did not approve of her vote in the Senate Finance Committee.
I did approve of her (less significant) vote against Obamacare, and think it should be acknowledged as a fact, however inconvenient that may be.
OK?
Seems every liberal that moves to Maine gets their ass involved in politics at some level. But then again - they are only doing so because they know whats best for us.
LePage himself is a heavy duty Tea Party man as are most of the new Republicans that recently won. Would not be surprised if a real Republican won that seat. Seems Paul is becoming popular with many people who did not vote for the man to begin with. Maybe, just maybe, his endorsement of a candidate will help tip the balance in our favor.
It wouldn’t be that hard to properly crop the photo.
My Prediction: Only to be replaced by, either, another RINO, or a Democrat. When is “RINO Republicanism” going to, actually, end in the northeastern states and then, really, be replaced by conservative Republicanism, if ever?
OK?
NO!!
I'll spell it out for you.
Senate vote on Obamacare with Olympia Snowe voting against Obamacare: YEA - 60, NAY - 39 Obamacare passes.
Senate vote on Obamacare if Olympia Snowe had voted for Obamacare: YEA - 61, NAY - 38 Obamacare passes.
Her vote on the Senate floor was meaningless to the outcome of the Senate vote since the Democrats controlled the Senate.
I ask again. Are you that naive?
“She could have voted to kill the Senate bill in the Finance Committee, but instead voted to move it to the Senate floor.”
She was a horrible RINO, a traitor to her party on numerous votes, but you can’t pin Obamacare on her.
The only Republican running is Scott D’Amboise, who does not have the profile one would expect of a Senate candidate (an ophthalmic technician/small business owner who used to serve as a Town Selectman) but appears to be solid on the issues without being offensive to Downeaster sensibilities. http://www.damboiseforsenate.com/ More impressively, he had raised over $470,000 for the race as of December 31, which is almost 5 times the amount raise by the five declared Democrat candidates combined. http://www.thegreenpapers.com/G12/ME#S1
D’Amboise claims that no one else will be able to meet the filing requirements by March 15, irrespective of how much money they spend; I am skeptical, since if D’Amboise and five Democrats (some of whom are nobodies) were able to gather enough signatures, someone with high name ID and some money should be able to do it quickly. I think you’ll see some more prominent Republicans making a run.
On the RAT side, I would not be surprised if both congressmen decided that they couldn’t pass up a once-in-a-generation open-seat Senate race in Maine. That will open up both House seats, and we should be competitive in both (and could be favored in the ME-02 if Raye stays in that race instead of switching to the Senate race).
With the current field of candidates, the ME Senate race is a toss-up; we’ll have to wait to find out who runs before we can handicap the race for real.
I will gladly stand corrected, but why was such a big issue made of her Finance Committee vote at that time?
Whoa! Not a fair question for a female RINO. The accession of this bimbo leaves the entire question of female suffrage on the table. "Avoid controversy." "Make Nice." "Share." "No Fighting." "Let's all work together."
"Vote for Olympia. She's really nice and you will get everything the Democrats promise, but we're just nicer." That is what the Republican Party has become. Had women voted in 1860, we would still have slavery, but the slaves would be "nicely" dressed and belong to "nice" people, who treated them "nicely."
WTF is "nice" all about? Wait, I'll ask that nice Muslim gentleman over there. The one with the bomb.
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