Posted on 09/05/2009 4:27:47 AM PDT by tobyhill
WASHINGTON -- The fate of efforts to enact sweeping changes to the nation's health-care system may come down to whether two moderate New England Republicans, Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, can be brought on board.
Sens. Snowe and Collins played a pivotal role in passing the $787 billion economic-stimulus package, joining Democrats to provide the key votes, along with Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
Now Republican leaders are lining up to oppose health-care legislation. And getting Sens. Snowe and Collins to cross party lines will be crucial, if the White House has any hope of enacting a bill that meets the president's goal of extending insurance coverage to tens of millions of Americans.
"If you're looking for Republicans who might compromise, the two Maine senators are definitely ones he'll have to look to," said Rep. Mike Michaud (D., Maine). "Democrats will not all be on same page. So he's going to have to pick up the losses elsewhere."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Snowe is so far to the left of moderate should be honost and LEAVE the party. Buy Snowe a “strap-on” so she can REALLY screw America!
This will be a millstone around everyone’s neck.
It certainly does not reflect the nature and the character ~ and will not reflect the interests ~ of the voters in Maine.
The GOP could easily strip them of campaign money. They’ve done it to conservatives enough to know how.

"The gullible fools in Maine who vote for me had better understand that
MY health care plan will remain the Platinum-Special Senate Health Care plan, and it will stay that way."
When was the last time any of these two faced a prinmary challenge? Fred Flinstone and Barney Rubble were not even born yet. Force them to pull a Specter.
Strip them of their committee seats and strip them of any campaign money.
The Rats can have these 2 idiots. They already took one idiot off our hands.
Congressmen like snowe and specter are ardent reasons why the pub party is become useless to conservatives as all dealmakeres with leftist are always fools and liberal rinos.
The pubs need to replaced with a real conservative party or the dems will always win as most conservatives refuse to vote for worthless rinos due to principle.
And the rinos will always desperatley cling to their office so they do not have to work for a living.
Crossover voting has destroyed any chance of conservatives being elected to even run in any campaign.
Stepping off the party platform over minor issues every once in a while is one thing, these clowns don’t even want on the party platform.
What’s the point of having a party if the platform is completely optional.
Calls to Snowe and Collins have been 8:1 in favor of reform with the Dems. We really need for every conservative to contact their offices. My letter from Senator Snowe states that she is going to vote with reform. It may not help to call but at least we could let them know they no longer represent us.
They are not “moderate Republicans.” They are crypto-Democrats. Please correct your newspaper.
Anyone could knock me over with a feather if Snow and probably Collins don’t cave.
Unfortunately they do represent the sentiments of most of their constituency, the assortment of moonbats, gov’t employees and layabouts that we have in this state and they do help ensure that Maine is a net importer of taxpayer money. The only hope is that public opinion will swing so solidly against the communistic directions of the BHO admin and the nutjobs in congress that they will be shamed into siding more with the GOP. My messages to them have been simple: stop the Obama agenda, don’t cooperate and when saner heads prevail, start with a clean sheet of paper on a rational private sector based set of reforms.
Any chance Texas gets to split into five states as promised by the treaty to counter act these nuts?
I say we turn on them and do everything we can to get them out of office. They’re not conservatives, they’re only using the Republican label to make the left’s victories “bi-partisan”.
The left has used party labels for years to accomplish their goals. When I talk to someone I always say, this is not about politics, Democrats or Republicans. this is about your freedom as an American citizen.
The real problem lies not with Collins or Snowe but with the RNC not enforcing party discipline.
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