We Didn’t Have to Lose Arlen Specter -By OLYMPIA SNOWE (NYT Op-Ed)

[kpete]

By OLYMPIA SNOWE
Published: April 28, 2009

IT is disheartening and disconcerting, at the very least, that here we are today — almost exactly eight years after Senator Jim Jeffords left the Republican Party — witnessing the departure of my good friend and fellow moderate Republican, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, for the Democratic Party. And the announcement of his switch was all the more painful because I believe it didn’t have to be this way.

When Senator Jeffords became an independent in 2001, I said it was a sad day for the Republicans, but it would be even sadder if we failed to confront and learn from the devaluation of diversity within the party that contributed to his defection. I also noted that we were far from the heady days of 1998, when Republicans were envisioning the possibility of a filibuster-proof 60-vote margin. (Recall that in the 2000 election, most pundits were shocked when Republicans lost five seats, resulting in a 50-50 Senate.)

I could have hardly imagined then that, in 2009, we would fondly reminisce about the time when we were disappointed to fall short of 60 votes in the Senate. Regrettably, we failed to learn the lessons of Jim Jeffords’s defection in 2001. To the contrary, we overreached in interpreting the results of the presidential election of 2004 as a mandate for the party. This resulted in the disastrous elections of 2006 and 2008, which combined for a total loss of 51 Republicans in the House and 13 in the Senate — with a corresponding shift of the Congressional majority and the White House to the Democrats.

It was as though beginning with Senator Jeffords’s decision, Republicans turned a blind eye to the iceberg under the surface, failing to undertake the re-evaluation of our inclusiveness as a party that could have forestalled many of the losses we have suffered.

(so sorry for the delayed link)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/opinion/29snowe.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

[joeybee12]

1. Come towards the light, Olympia...it's the only way you'll ever get a Committe Chair! n/t

[Demeter]

3. Touche!

:rofl:

[joeybee12]

7. Even if the Repukes gain a seat or two in 2010...it will be a short-lived

victory...they are soooooooooooo out of touch with America.

[rox63]

16. I've been hoping she'd flip to D for a long time

I think she's more liberal than Specter has ever been.

[Demeter]

2. Turn Back, Oh GOP, Forswear Thy Foolish Ways

[Vidar]

22. See you later. I'm going to the front of the theAter.

[TommyO]

27. Ah, a Godspell reference

Now I have to listen to the original broadway cast album again!

[ananda]

4. Yes you did, honey.

In fact, you are losing all sane Reeps.
Your party is now a small clique of
crazed limbaughtomized fringe extremists.

Furthermore, your party is in its last
death throes. It will soon morph into
another party, most likely Libertarian.

Congrats!

[Cary]

5. "Republicans turned a blind eye to the iceberg under the surface,"

Olympia errs in thinking that in her moderation she's any less myopic. Leopards do not easily change their spots, even her leopards.

[Kittycat]

6. link? or is that where the story ended?

[kpete]

9. here you go & thanks for the heads up

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/opinion/29snowe.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

[Jackpine Radical]

8. So is Olympia going to be the next defector?

I can certainly detect an undercurrent in her words, expressing her long-term unhappiness with the hard-right tone of her party. I bet she has been taking some painful hits from the Party Enforcers for throwing her vote in with the Dems on a couple of big ones.

[mainegreen]

12. Doubt it. The Maine republican party is not really like the version elsewhere.

Our politics up here is... different.

She'll never switch. She doesn't have to. Most democrats up here support her, for some odd reason.

[blondeatlast]

14. I read it as she's staying for now bu things better start changing very, very fast

or she's gone too--so I hope to hell that she gets slammed by the assmouths of the party and Michael Steele--and I fully predict she will.

She's taken that first step (those were thoughtful but pretty strong words--as was her invocation of their savior, Reagan), I can see her easily being trashed in the RNC mouthpiece media and picking up her gait towards Independence or even the Democrats.

[Johonny]

17. depends on Rethugs response to this

If the morans declare a mission to remove her from the party, then yeah I can imagine her switching. It's not clear the ultraright in Maine could oust her in a primary though.

[xchrom]

10. so olympia -- if you stick WITH the GOP now -- are you really a moderate? nt

[KittyWampus]

13. exactly, she enables their behavior.

[xchrom]

15. the light bulb just never goes on for them does it? nt

[KittyWampus]

11. Oh shut the fuck up Snowe. The Republican party has been about hate and division and greed

for DECADES.

If you had an integrity, you'd have switched parties yourself long ago.

[WI_DEM]

18. Stop lamenting something you can't change, Olympia, and quit the party and become a democrat

[prolesunited]

19. She's the next to bolt

when they all gang up on her to attack her for writing this.

[Hepburn]

21. Agree....

...she would not be so out spoken about this IMO unless she has been havin the same thoughts.

:hi:

[Psychic Consortium]

20. All republican careers are over unless they start doing the right thing.

It is the only choice they have.

[Occam Bandage]

23. An elephant can't change its spots, Olympia. Your party is controlled by the nutjobs.

For all your whimpering about 'oh, we need to learn some lessons,' you're an enabler as long as you stay a part of their caucus.

[lumberjack_jeff]

24. Which is the way we want it.

The moderate republicans pose the most risk. Beat them, keep the Inhofe's.

We should help the Republicans marginalize themselves.

[Occam Bandage]

26. Certainly. A Republican party without moderates is a Republican party without leverage. nt

[omega minimo]

25. "the devaluation of diversity within the party........."

:rofl:

[hvn_nbr_2]

28. I don't think Republicans are allowed to say the word "diversity"

unless they say it with a sneer. She seems to be trying to get kicked out.