BREAKING: Snowe not running!!!!

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Good riddance. Maybe we'll get a Senator to replace her with any sort of coherent ideology.

Very surprising, though.

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The constant emphasis on ideology is tiring. There is more to politics, at least in the real world.

I have more respect for a bad ideology than to just not have one at all. Hell, wormyguy is giving her too much credit by saying he just decides her votes on coinflip. Some of her votes and pronouncements in the last few years have made absolutely no sense and actively contradict each other. No one with a coherent ideology can do and say some of the things she's done since Obama was elected.

I have little sympathy for her remarks about the evils of partisanship and violence in political rhetoric. That's her party's fault. If she wanted to do something about it, she should've stood up and fought back against it; instead she played right into it. How can I respect that?

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She almost lost her district in 2008, and again in 2010. It's not as if she's that strong of a candidate to put up.

Not so, if i remember correctly. She beat moderate Republican by 55-45 in very good Democratic year 2008 and then - his conservative primary opponent by 57-43 in 2010. So technically she even improved.

I was about to post this as well. I agree that Michaud would obviously be a stronger candidate from an electoral perspective, but let's not all act like Pingree has held onto her seat by a thread or something. And besides, who exactly do the Republicans have on offer, anyway?

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Michaud is out, so I guess it'll be Pingree.

Surprising.

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PPP teases their Maine poll:

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Excellent, excellent.

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This posts sums up Snowe perfectly, as well as the premise of Moderate Heroism which so many here still hold up as a virtue:

Well, obviously could be worse, but basically HP.
The thing is, they don't really have a coherent viewpoint, except they'll vote for anything if you cut around a couple of hundred million from what gets originally proposed. Bush's initial massive tax cuts after taking office? No good. Bush's still quite massive but a bit smaller tax cuts? Fine! Obama's massive amounts of stimulus in 2009? Terrible - deficit here we come, etc. Obama's still pretty massive amounts of stimulus with $100 chopped off by Snowe? Great! Really, though, there's no coherent ideology that says "the policies of the current president, except somewhat cheaper, are always good, even when one of them is a radical supply-sider and another is a liberal Democrat". If you're proposing legislation from the White House's end, you should be able to basically game this system by initially overbidding by $100 million.

I'm glad I'm not the only one that remembers and loves that quote. A perfect summary of Snowe.