Snowe Takes a Hike
Olympia Snowe
By Jean Webster
Senator Olympia Snowe has been all over the news since her surprising announcement that she’s through dealing with what she called “an atmosphere of polarization and ‘my way or the highway’ ideologies” in Congress.
Since then, the question has arisen about whether Maine without Olympia Snowe would be like Massachusetts without Ted Kennedy, both of whom served in the Senate for decades, he for 47 years, she for a total of 34 years in the House and Senate (plus five years in the Maine Legislature before that).
My immediate response is “no.”
I respect Snowe as a person who often did good work, without keeping her name in the public eye. But as a lifelong Democrat, I never voted for her.
Of course there were years when I wasn’t in Kennedy’s corner either. These were the times when his personal behavior more than embarrassed his family and his country, culminating in the death of Mary Jo Kopechne. It was the low point in his life and ruined any chance to be president, though over time he worked his way back from spoiled rich guy to patriarch of his family and beloved senator who was admired by several of his ideological opposites in the Senate.
But, besides that personal conduct, there were vast differences between Ted Kennedy and Olympia Snowe. He was a public person, frequently seen in the news, not only in his home state but in the national and international media and had a far more public persona than Snowe. Despite their differing personalities, Snowe and Kennedy worked closely together, particularly on defense issues.
Snowe has served on a number of important committees in Congress – Small Business, Intelligence, Commerce, Science and Transportation – but she’s seldom seen in the news. It seems she prefers to remain in the background.
Between Snowe and Susan Collins – Maine’s other Republican Senator – Collins wins hands down in getting her face and name on television and radio, and in print. Probably three to five times more often. If Snowe has a statement to make, she does it quietly and without fanfare. Perhaps she’s more like Maine’s first woman senator, Margaret Chase Smith, another Republican, who worked quietly yet who was one of the first members of the Senate to stand up to condemn the tactics of Joseph McCarthy in 1950.
What will Snowe be remembered for? It will be her centrist views and her attempts to get beyond partisan politics. Recently, both she and Collins were called the most moderate Republicans in Congress. In 2010, they were two of the three Republicans to support President Obama’s financial reform bill.
Although Maine voted wholeheartedly for Barak Obama, people here are very loyal to their two Republican senators. I think it’s the Town Meeting mentality; every March, Mainers convene in town halls to vote for those who will run their local governments. In a mostly rural state, these are their neighbors, their friends. In Maine, we vote for the person, not the party.
In 2008, I made phone calls for Tom Allen, the Democrat running against Susan Collins. Remember, I was calling only Democrats. But many I spoke with said yes on Obama, no on Allen. When I asked why, they would invariably cite a personal story about how “Susan” helped them. No problem about crossing party lines. I understand that Susan’s not Olympia, but to me it’s an attitude here in this state – about people and about how to vote.
Perhaps it’s this attitude of fairness that Olympia Snowe misses in the Senate of the 21st century.
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Tags: Maine, moderate, Olympia Snowe, Senate, webster
March 8th, 2012 at 12:57 am
These days, a “moderate” Republican politician is anyone who votes the party line only 95% of the time, instead of 100%, and in that regard Olympia Snowe fits that definition. About the nicest thing that one can say about her political career is that she wasn’t abrasive. However, whether under pressure from the G.O.P. leadership, or not, she almost always could be counted on to do as told.
She went along with the G.O.P. to hold the nation hostage through the reliance on the filibuster, preventing even the discussion of vital legislation, all with the intent of making Obama fail. Except for one or two pieces of legislation that had she opposed would have ended her hold on her Senate seat, there she was, dumbly going along, blocking most everything of value from passing.
She’s leaving, perhaps because her conscience got the best of her. But conscience, or not, she went along and has helped to inflict much damage upon the people of this nation.
When she let her actions overrule her conscience, she stopped being a true moderate. Today she’s just another right-wing Republican extremist. I’m glad to see that she’s going!
March 8th, 2012 at 8:41 am
Nice surprise! As usual, a good perspective.