Olympia Snowe: And why one vote matters in the Senate

[pnwmom]

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/why-one-vote-matters-in-the-senate/?hp

Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, joined 13 Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee to approve the committee’s health care bill, the only Republican to do so. For months, her support seemed pivotal to health care’s overhaul in the Senate. For much of the public, it’s puzzling that the politics of reshaping a sector that accounts for 16 percent of the G.D.P. should seemingly hinge on one senator.

Is this a healthy and expected consequence of Congressional politics? What might this say about how partisan politics has evolved? Is there a historical precedent that we might compare this to?


Larry Sabato, director, Center for Politics
Theda Skocpol, professor of government
Norman J. Ornstein, American Enterprise Institute
Steven Hill, New America Foundation
Ramesh Ponnuru, senior editor, National Review
John J. Pitney, professor of American politics
Cesar V. Conda, former policy adviser to Vice President Cheney

SNIP

(Opinions by the above follow.)

[Autumn]

1. Did Snowe help write the bill? I caught

someone on the news saying that she did.

[question everything]

2. As with Lincoln Chafee and other moderate senators

and former senators, I often wonder whether we are better off with moderate Republicans or defeating them with Democrats. As much as we want to have a bullet proof majority, I think that it is healthy to have some moderate Republicans who can show the rest of the country that not all are Limpdick dittoheads.