Snowe to McCain: Bipartisan this! [RINO fight]

Politico ^ | 2009-02-09 | Daniel Libit

[rabscuttle385]

Not bipartisan? Try telling that to Sen. Olympia Snowe.

On CBS’s Face the Nation Sunday, Sen. John McCain scoffed at the notion that the support President Barack Obama’s stimulus proposal has received from Snowe, Sen. Susan Collins, Arlen Specter, constituted bipartisanship.

“[T]his agreement is not bipartisan,” McCain told moderator Bob Schieffer. “I've been in bipartisan agreements, many. This is three Republican senators. Every Republican congressman voted against it in the House, plus Democrats. And all but three Republicans stayed together on this. That's not bipartisanship. That's just picking off a couple of senators.”

On Monday, Snowe took issue with that view.

In a statement to Politico, she said the package “represents a compromise that was established through true consensus building. As a member of the Senate Finance Committee, I worked with leadership and the Obama Administration to include key job-igniting provisions in the package, such as small business expensing and a boost in the New Markets Tax Credit.

“I can attest that this was certainly a give-and-take process. Our country is facing the worst economic conditions since World War II and we must not squander this opportunity to develop and enact a stimulus plan that will create jobs and help the displaced.”

By focusing on the work that led to the stimulus deal, Snowe seemed to adopt the process-oriented definition of “bipartisanship” William Safire provides in the latest version of his political dictionary.

“Bipartisanship,” Safire says, is when “politicians set aside differences to work together on political matters.”

But can a bill be called “bipartisan” – regardless of the process by which it came about – if only three members of the opposing party support it?

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

It bears noting that there were more Democrats who opposed it than Republicans who voted for it.

Nope, Dems voted for it 58-0. If only 2 Dems (or 2 of the Obama RINO trio) had voted NAY it would not have passed.

[Maceman]

Nope, Dems voted for it 58-0. If only 2 Dems (or 2 of the Obama RINO trio) had voted NAY it would not have passed.

Yes, I know that. I should have added that I was talking about the total Congress, including the House. Eleven Democrats voted against the Stimulus bill in the House, while no Republicans voted for it.

So Congress-wide, you had only 3 Republicans voting for it, but 11 Democrats voting against it.