"The looming Senate vote on a Republican plan to give employers the right to withdraw health care coverage based on religious and moral convictions" is the issue that finally pushed Senator Olympia Snowe over the edge and into the announcement that she is retiring at the end of this term. It's not the only issue from Snowe's point -- negativism and constant pressure from social conservatives and tea party activists at home have been part of the problem, according to a report this morning in the Times.
Nate Silver looks at the whole picture and finds that it's likely Snowe will be replaced by a Democrat.
The retirement of Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine is about as damaging to a party’s electoral prospects as these things get, turning a seat that Republicans were very likely to retain into one they will probably lose.
There have been some comparable cases in the recent past, but most were on the Democratic side, in particular the retirements of Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana in 2010, and the pending retirement Senator Kent Conrad, also of North Dakota, in this cycle.
Ms. Snowe’s retirement levels the playing field a bit. ...
... Democrats are likely to have the better candidate, above and beyond their partisan advantage. Especially in a small state, the most natural ascendants to the Senate are members of the United States House of Representatives. Democrats occupy both of Maine’s House seats... Nate Silver, NYT
There's a problem, though. As long as there are Republicans in the Senate, the place will remain a moral pig sty. The irony is that it is the Republicans' insistence on turning every vote into a moral battle that has made so. New Jersey Republican, Christie Whitman, gets it.
Christie Whitman, a former Republican governor of New Jersey and Environmental Protection Agency administrator, pointed to social issues as the core problem in the polarization of American politics.
As anger over the state of politics increases apathy, “only the most rabid partisans vote,” so political strategists steer campaigns to issues that turn them on, said Ms. Whitman, who supports abortion rights. For Republicans, those are often social issues like abortion, gay marriage and contraception. But the rise of a new strain of fiscal conservatism has also led to moralistic portrayals of votes on spending and the debt limit. And when issues are framed around morality, compromise becomes very difficult. ...NYT
Behind all this constant moralizing lie the real goals of most members of Congress: plenty of money to hold onto a seat in the Senate and enough of a record to be of political value to the deep pockets and even deeper amorality of K Street, once out of office.
