Enough With the Praise for Olympia

Posted by Bob Lord

I’ve really read and heard enough of the lionizing of Olympia Snowe for her so-called moderate views. We’re of course going to hear the same about Susan Collins when she retires.

Olympia Snowe is no different from Ben Nelson or Evan Bayh or Blanche Lincoln. Each managed to win election in a state that year in and year out votes for the other party. And each was addicted to Washington. So, they voted the way they perceived was necessary to stay in office. Snowe voted with the Dems when doing otherwise would have been pushing her luck with Maine voters. Bayh and Nelson and Lincoln voted with the Repubs when doing otherwise would have been pushing their luck with voters in Nebraska and Louisiana and Arkansas.

If Olympia Snowe were from Oklahoma or Idaho, her voting record and moderate posture would truly have been extraordinary. But she wasn’t. She was from Maine, a progressive state. Her moderation was far less an expression of who she was and what she stood for than it was a strategy for survival. Simply put, she was no less a whore than any other Senator, and it’s truly nauseating that the mainstream media is pushing this absurd meme that she rose above the partisan rancor when others didn’t. What nonsense. She did what she had to do to survive.

What’s remarkable here is not Olympia Snowe’s character. Rather, it’s how badly the mainstream media has it wrong. While Snowe is being touted by the mainstream media as a maverick, the truth is that she was a conformist. It’s just that conformity works a bit differently if you’re a Republican from Maine than if you’re a Republican from Utah or a Democrat from Maryland.