Joe's Air Blog

An occasional Brain Dump, from the creator of Joe's SeaBlog

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Snowe must Go

I've been thinking that I ought to write a blog entry about Maine's incumbent senator Olympia Snowe, and how it is time for her to be removed from the Senate. Per usual, Wisdom Weasel has done all of the heavy lifting on the issue, and his comments reflect much of what I would say on the matter.

For all of the moderate Democrats and Independents in Maine who don't like the direction that the Congress is heading, but who push-button Snowe's re-election because "she's a moderate," and "she does a good job representing the interests of Maine," there is one sentence in Weasel's post that is pertinent, if a bit underserved:

In reality all Snowe represents is a warm body helping to shore up the
Republican majority; to be patronized by the leadership on matters pertaining to
lobsters and lighthouses but otherwise just counted as another vote for the GOP.


Snowe is "helping to shore up the Republican majority." This means that the Republicans get to set the Senate agenda, get to have majorities on all the senate committees, and get to direct the debate on the Senate floor. A vote for Snowe helps to perpetuate the Republican agenda, no matter if she is a moderate legislator. And, as Weasel so convincingly points out, if Olympia Snowe was once a moderate, she is no more. The only time she breaks lockstep with the GOP agenda is when the the outcome is not in doubt. A token bone to her constituancy to enable her to wave the "moderate" flag.

My support will go to the Democratic challenger Jean Hay Bright, the journalist, organic farmer and former homesteader from Dixmont. Hay Bright wants to pull out of Iraq, supports single-payor health care (might as well join the rest of the industrialized world!), supports renewable energy investment, and wants to protect the environment, all values that I share.

Bill Slavick is the Independent in the race, and while I find his forthrightness to be quite enjoyable, there are a couple of areas where we aren't so well aligned, and I question whether he has the political chops to make a difference in Washington without a party backing him up (as opposed to Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders, who has been in the House for many years and who, in fact, has the endorsement of Vermont Democrats, who did not enter a candidate in the race.) Slavick's web site is worth a read.

Labels:

5 Comments:

At 9:39 AM, Blogger Wisdom Weasel said...

Thanks for the kind words and back link, old pal.

I'm pessimistic: Snowe plays the game too well to ever lose (and that's really what she does each time; actively not lose) and this time she only needs 34% to get reelected. Time for instant run-off voting so that 3rd party and independent candidates don't keep inadvertently making it easier for incumbents to win.

 
At 1:03 PM, Blogger Joe said...

Admittedly it's a long shot. I read that JHB's "war chest" was $80,000, vs. OJS's $3.5 Million.

Minor nitpick - Snowe needs as little as 34% to get re-elected. If Slavick were to get no votes, Oly would still need the requisite 50.1%. I agree that instant run-off voting is a thing whose time has come. Perhaps we'd see some real support for third- (and 4th- and 5th-...) parties if a vote for a third party wasn't effectively a vote for the opposition. I know I'm tired of voting defensively, when I might prefer a third-party candidate.

 
At 1:04 PM, Blogger Joe said...

Then again, it's not about true democracy, it's about keeping in power those currently in power.

 
At 9:55 AM, Blogger Wisdom Weasel said...

True.. if Slavick draws no votes. I think he'll draw the equivalent of Nader nationally in 2000; not enough to be statistically significant but enough for the Dems to blame him when they are trampled by Snowe.

Growing up with the British system where there were two parties in play but always a third on hand to draw a significant minority and also a "first past the post" forms the government means that for most of my life the British government has never had a plurality of the popular vote but always enough seats in the house to outvote the combined opposition. They might be stable systems on both sides of the Atlantic but they aren't democratic :(

I agree too about the impossibility of getting a bunch of politicians to vote to make their own chances harder.

 
At 6:27 AM, Blogger Jim said...

Joe wrote:

"I agree that instant run-off voting is a thing whose time has come."

Yeah, I'd say it's long past time we did something new and different.

I concur wholeheartedly with your post on Snowe. It pisses me off that Mainers keep sending this pathetic champion of mediocrity back and our weakass local media has the audacity to compare her to Margaret Chase Smith--good lord!!

 

Post a Comment

<< Home