Will Olympia Snowe Bolt the GOP?

Pajamas Media ^ | Sept. 20 | Donald Douglas

[AJKauf]

It would be understandable for those who closely follow politics to have missed Republican Senator Olympia Snowe’s comments on health care a couple of days ago.

The second week of September was an unusually big week for partisan politics (and that’s saying something in this day and age). Commentators on both sides of the divide sparred bitterly over the crowd estimates for the massive 9/12 Taxpayer March on the National Mall. In addition, the drip, drip, drip of scandalous revelations surrounding the ACORN “prostitution sting” further strained the lengths of recent political polarization. And as the weekend neared, allegations of racist opposition to President Barack Obama’s policies — aired by former President Jimmy Carter, no less — had further dashed the longstanding hopes for bipartisan cooperation that followed Barack Obama’s inauguration in January.

Given all that, Senator Snowe’s mid-week remarks on her place in a changing GOP might seem tame. Snowe, a moderate Republican and senior senator from Maine, stated that “I haven’t changed as a Republican, I think more that my party has changed.”...

[buwaya]

“Tumors” ?

What incredible arrogance.

“Excise” all these people - and you excise their voters too.
The logical end of such thinking is irrelevance. We might as well be troglodytic hermits, secure in our purity, forgotten by all.

[Road Warrior ‘04]

Away with this pointless self-defeating arrogance. Democracy is addition, not subtraction.

First, we're not a democracy! Second, gone with her!

[gogogodzilla]

As long as conservatives vote for Snowe... conservatives will have to deal with Snowe.

Things may change if you break the pattern. They are guaranteed to stay the same if you do not.

You would ensure Snowe’s continued political career.

[buwaya]

Oh good, we are of course a Republic. That means we automatically get our way ... by what means ?

Who is going to make sure that its our will that prevails and not the San Francisco voters ?

Reality does not agree with your view I’m afraid. We need to win elections, otherwise no “Republic” is going to save us.

[The Great RJ]

Look how successful Arlen Spector was in leaving the GOP. Democrats snubbed him and he may well lose his seat.

[buwaya]

“As long as conservatives vote for Snowe... conservatives will have to deal with Snowe.”

Of course we will, this life is a vale of tears. We have to deal with her as we deal with bad weather. Whats new there ?

Things will not “change”. There is no promised land. There is no pattern to break. There is only a dirty struggle among imperfect people.

The core of conservatism is a full acceptance of reality. Fantasies are NOT conservative.

Reality is that there is no way conservatives are going to increase in power if her seat goes to someone who votes 70:30 liberal vs Snowe who votes 50:50.

[buwaya]

Specter was unpopular.

Snowe is not.

[puppypusher]

God!I hope so.She needs to join Arlen Spector and the rest of the traitors.

[taildragger]

I think we will see this occur with other elected officials as the money runs out, and not just on the Republican side either. Increasingly the fundamental practice of governing in Washington will no longer involve acting Santa Claus and doling out borrowed money to interest groups, rather it will require Representatives to be the public face of pain by selecting among constituents to determine who will get less and who will pay more. Governing will just not be so much fun anymore.

A caller on Bill Bennett's show claims he was at a state TeaParty..Of all people, Dennis Kusinich was their. He asked him why he was their (he was curious) and how things were in Washington. He replied, history will note this is the most corrupt adminstration in history, and yes it was not fun. The Insurance, Drug and other large Corps (hmmm GE?) are at the trough.

You are Spot on Nathan, as usual.

IMHO the Tea Parties, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin's rise etc. is do to this. People know we are broke and the gjg is up. We yearn for politicians that will just tell us the truth, we can deal with the cuts. Just don't lie to us anymore....

[nathanbedford]

I agree with you entirely that the people get the kind of government overtime that they want. That does not mean that people are not often misled as they were, I believe, by Barack Obama in the last election who essentially committed election fraud by masking his Marxism by presenting himself to a people of generous nature as the literal embodiment of the reconciliation of the races.

But, over time, if the people want a centerleft government they will have it. So long as government does not intrude much of their affairs, most citizens, if not most voters, are content to let the government proceed unsupervised providing it takes only small bites. I think the genius of democracy is not that we avoid mistakes but that we correct them before the harm is mortal. Thus, we save the Republic from the huge mistakes of the Carter years by voting for Ronald Reagan. The Electorate is reactive, not really pro active. It bestirs itself to correct mistakes with much more energy than it employs in exploring a brave New world.

The point is that an effective politician understands the limitations of citizen involvement and works within the envelope. This brings me to your second point which is that sugar is always better than better than vinegar, a truth which Ronald Reagan never forgot. But neither did Reagan compromise his message, although he clearly sugarcoated it. There is a difference between campaigning with clarity and campaigning with malice. Immediately after the last election, I wrote this post which bears on the subject:

We have not lost the 2008 election because we were excessively partisan while Obama was enlightened and transcendental. We actually lost the election because George Bush and Karl Rove betrayed the soul of conservatism. A party without its soul is like an army which does not believe in itself, it cannot win the next contest. A party which had abandoned its principles and so lost the last two elections and frittered away both its power as the ruling coalition and its status as the majority philosophy of the nation, cannot expect to swell its ranks by recruiting to a lost cause. The party must first know what the cause is and only then can it recruit. To again borrow the military analogy, a party like an army disintegrates without a mission. Armies are assigned missions but a political party finds its mission only through soul-searching.

As this process occurs we will be told by the left that only a big tent party can win and that to become a big tent one must move to co-opt the center. That is not how it works. That is the reverse of the way it works. The center is not peopled by voters with fixed notions about the exercise of power who wait for one of the great political parties to surrender their values and embrace the tempered and resolute opinions of the middle. That happens with splinter parties but not with the mushy middle. When an unaffiliated voter bestirs himself to enter the polling booth he is confronted with one of two options: right or left. He does not consider who has moved the farthest geographically from right to the left or left to right any more than he commits because of his own long held political beliefs. He votes for the fella who best tickles his fancy at the moment. Put more charitably, he votes for the candidate who persuades that he is the best, and has the best to offer.

If we as conservatives do not believe that we have the best to offer we should get out of the business. A candidate, like a party, who is centered on his philosophy has integrity and is persuasive.

...........................................................................................

[gogogodzilla]

The point, which you missed, is that unless you try... you’ll never know.

And you argue against trying.

[wk4bush2004]

OUT with Snowe, Collins, McCain, Graham, Crist, and all the other RINOs!!!!!

PURGE THE PARTY OF THE RINOS NOW!!!!! HERD THEM ALL OUT!!!

[freespirited]

Isnt Snowe a former first lady of Maine?

She and her husband (assume he is still alive) probably have a social circle around their GOP affiliation.

I cant see someone of her history changing parties. Just not the kind of thing first ladies do.

[Jim Noble]

As long as conservatives vote for Snowe... conservatives will have to deal with Snowe.

And when they stop voting for Snowe, they will have to deal with the communist who replaces her.

In Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, RINO is as good as it gets. The Dems have moved decisively Left - because they can beat "real Republicans" seven days a week with commies in those states.

That's ten seats. RINOs can beat those commies.

Ten is the difference between 41 and 51.

You cannot replace those ten seats under any circumstances. If you don't support RINOs (where they can get a majority), then you can't have the Senate.

[buwaya]

“This brings me to your second point which is that sugar is always better than better than vinegar, a truth which Ronald Reagan never forgot.”

Indeed he did not. He would have had nothing to do with calls to “excise tumors” as we have way too much of these days.

He would have pressed for his agenda with humility, consideration, good humor, and, indeed, tolerance. This all does not require losing ones soul.

[Jim Noble]

PURGE THE PARTY OF THE RINOS NOW!!!!! HERD THEM ALL OUT!!!

Down to 32 in the Senate!!! Dems in the White House for sixty years!!!!

Yaaaaay!!

[buwaya]

And at the end of that, I suggest we remaining conservatives all move to some pleasant caves in the mountains and in blessed solitude, enjoy our purity.

[IAintGotNoMoney]

That person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally; not a 20 percent traitor. - Ronald Reagan.

buwaya is right. If we continue to insist that only candidates that agree 100% are welcome then get used to Obama and expect even more marxism. Maybe a lot of you folks live in red states, but many of us don’t and we know how much worse things will get. We need more allies - not less.

[buwaya]

No I argue against antagonizing people just because they don’t agree with us 100%.

Persuade, don’t condemn.

[nathanbedford]

You know, I instinctively credit the caller's account of his discussion with Dennis Kucinich. His image is just eccentric enough to embolden him to break ranks with party orthodoxy and he is, in his own way, honest enough to blow the whistle on the kind of grand corruption that is undoubtedly going on.

I should not say this, but in hindsight we conservatives might reluctantly come to the conclusion that the two candidates who made the most sense, indeed, the only two who made any sense, were Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul.

It looks to me like they will be the ones vindicated by history on the big issue that will stamp our politics for a generation is God spares us from the Manchuria Marxist.