Posted on 09/08/2009 4:34:43 AM PDT by Kaslin
The email dings started around 10:00 pm, and continued throughout the night as folks throughout Maine sent me the latest report on CNN.com that quotes "sources" who claim, "President Obama and top aides have quietly stepped up talks with moderate Republican Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine on a scaled-back health care bill, according to two sources familiar with the negotiations."
I know that Washington, D.C. folks spend a great deal of time in an alternative world, but seriously - Senator Snowe engaged in behind the scenes talks with the President? Forget for a moment that Senator Snowe has been working on health care issues since President Obama was in grammar school, the real issue here is that Senator Snowe doesn't need to do anything behind the scenes with the Whitehouse, or anyone else for that matter.
I met with the Senator personally during the August recess back here in Maine when she spoke with dozens of Maine folks in a series of health care talks throughout the state. Here is what I learned: She is worried about costs and the impact on the deficit, the public option plan is "off the table", she wants more private insurance companies in Maine (we have 3), and she doesn't support higher taxes - especially during a recession.
Those concerns and opinions were not from "unnamed sources," they were straight from Senator Snowe. And just to be certain, last week I also spoke with her Chief of Staff and her Health Care Legislative Aide. There is nothing new - other than the fact that Senator Snowe continues to be committed to working for health care reform with her colleagues in the "gang of six" and that "nothing has changed that would justify the CNN story."
I think the fundamental problem here is that the folks at the White House - who are very likely spinning this story in an attempt to pressure Senator Snowe - are totally misreading the way she operates. While the "moderate" label is often used by the far right to protest Senator Snowe's actions - the left is about to learn a very important lesson from the moderate from Maine.
It is not an act. It is not something Senator Snowe does to get re-elected or to curry favor. She believes that there is middle ground and she looks for it. For her, middle ground means giving businesses the opportunity to join together and purchase health care - regardless of state lines. It involves tort reform, it involves ensuring folks have a skin in the game (not "free" government health care) and it involves truly bending the cost curve. The bottom line is that Democrats in Congress, and this President, have failed to find the middle ground in the health care debate. In fact, they have veered so far off the center that they will find no sympathy - behind the scenes or not - from Senator Snowe or her other moderate colleagues.
As for the other "White House" strategy where CNN reports, "Allies of the president hope that if Snowe accepts a health care agreement, she might also bring along her Republican colleague from Maine, moderate Senator Susan Collins." Don't hold your breath.
In fact, watch and listen to the video here - Senator Collins rejects the public option, and the health care reform effort in her own words, as she responds to a question from an SEIU member. (The relevant part starts at 55:25 and runs for two minutes).
So, my suggestion to the White House: put away your shovels, there is no Snowe in the forecast.
I hope this article is accurate...
I hope this is true but I don’t believe it. If Snowe were concerned about deficits and higher taxation why did she vote for the crap sandwich earlier this year?
Exactly....
“It is not something Senator Snowe does to get re-elected or to curry favor.” - pure BHusseinObama scat! Snowe is always among the first to break ranks with the Republicans. She and her CoS are just trying to cover her (very substantial)butt over the fact that she was plotting to dump the interests of her constituents down the crapper again.
I don’t trust snow and collins anymore than I trust a dimocrat, which is not at all...
Bingo...! Thank you...!
Simple, she is stupid.
She is reading the Obama Tea Leaves, looking at 2010, looking at Hillary for 2012 and has prepared an exit strategy for herself, i.e., a quiet back-door out of Obama's tent.
Even RINOs are smart enough to, if not exactly leave a sinking ship, to look for the lifeboats.
If they can’t get Snowe, they may have to defer to one of the other questionables: McCain, Graham, Collins, etc.
No one ever knows how they are going to vote until the voting is over.
Obama does have one secret weapon to make sure the bill is bipartisan, however. If necessary, Specter could jump parties, vote a republican ‘yes’, and then jump back. Thusly, Obama can claim bipartisanship.
I believe Obama sold the nation on a bill by using the banking and economic crisis. Yes, it was a bitter pill to swallow, but he successfully portrayed it as a do-or-die scenario. Turns out that wasn’t the case. I hope Ms. Snowe is once bitten, twice shy.
Wait just a second, let me pull the knife out of my back from the last time Snowe and Collins stuck a shiv in us. Now what was that you were saying about Snowe...?
There is no way McCain or Graham will vote for a public option. ZERO chance. They may be RINO’s, but they are not liars and they have consistently said for months NO to the public option.
You forgot the shank McCain stuck in your back as well, here, let me stop the bleeding and suture that wound...
These RINOs are very creative.
They will eventually find a way to stab us in the back.
Just you wait.
http://townhall.com/columnists/TarrenBragdon/2009/07/23/the_public_plan_exists_and_it_doesnt_work
Maine Government run Health Care. Another article by Tarren Bragdon,
Given her past, I, unfortunately, don't think it is. She votes more with the left than she does with her party.
We are going to watch how Snowe and Collins are going to vote, and if they vote for the bill then the voters in Naine should vote them out in 2012 and 2014. Enough is enough
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