They were liberals before this vote. The “moderate” label is bullcrap. They called EX-Republican fmr. Sen. Linc Chafee (whose voting record was literally identical to Hillary Clinton’s) a “Moderate”, when he was a Socialist.
It's been known for YEARS that those three are simply closet Democrats with an "R" next to their names on ballot. Gotta love the "now that they voted for the Stimlus, the party should not support them anymore" crowd. That's about..... oh.... ten years overdue, actually.
WHERE were the conservative activists last year when Collins was up for re-election? WHERE was the push to find a challenger for her in the primary? Conservatives have only themselves to blame for Collins being a rubber stamp for Obama for the next 4+ years. Collins faced absolutely no pressure to support the party base at election time. She regularly votes with the RATs on all kinds of major issues and gets a total pass from GOP voters in Maine, and now has six years to do whatever she wants. But that's okay, she's "electable", right?
Since many on FR seem to have have forgotten, here's a little reminder -- the "weak sisters" of the Senate Republicans -- the absolute WORST of the bunch (FAR more liberal than just a Norm Coleman type right-of-center Republican), were: 1) Specter 2) Collins 3) Snowe 4) Chafee 5) Jeffords. The latter two are gone now, and immediately ceased the farce of calling themselves "Republican" the moment they left office (Jeffords ceased pretending to be Republican shortly after he was re-elected). Both openly support Obama now.
But why have conservatives allowed the first three to infest the party for the last decade?
Copy and paste this little thread from 1999 until it sinks in with some conservatives: