Snowe: GOP Has Abandoned Principles; Specter Switch "Devastating"

Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, one of the few remaining moderate Republicans in the Senate, said Tuesday that Arlen Specter's abandonment of the GOP is "devastating," both "personally and I think for the party."

"I've always been deeply concerned about the views of the Republican Party nationally in terms of their exclusionary policies and views towards moderate Republicans," said Snowe, who has been approached, she said, by Democrats in the past about switching parties.

Specter's switch to the Democratic Party "underscores the blunt reality" that the GOP is not a welcome place for moderates, she said.

So far, she said, she's staying put. "I believe in the traditional tenets of the Republican Party: strong national defense, fiscal responsibility, individual opportunity. I haven't abandoned those principles that have been the essence of the Republican Party. I think the Republican Party has abandoned those principles.

She added that being a Republican is simply part of who she is. "It's my ethnic heritage, Spartan side, that continues to fight," she said.

Ryan Grim is the author of the forthcoming book This Is Your Country On Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America

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Comments

[Zengeist]

The cascading fall of the GOP is what it is - much the worse for us - but how can anyone not rightly admire this woman. She IS the best of what the Republican party used to be - awhile ago now - even with little good company left on her side of the aisle. She is a public servant with smarts and character and integrity. Being moderate, she may find the only real option at some point is to follow Arlen Specter, but until then, I hope the good people of Maine keep sending her back to the Senate.

[Shavano]

Olympia you know you want a piece of this. You're not really a right-wing nut job. Go ahead, you can do it, stand up for your principles and do the right thing. The Democrats have a big tent and while we progressives won't particularly love you, we will welcome you into the caucus. Do what you know is right and abandon the GOP. They abandoned you years ago and with Michael Steele in power, it won't be long until they won't support you in your next election. End the charade, undue the shackles the Republicans have put on you and join the side of the American people for a change.

[TrueBlueMajority]

well said, Shavano. I wish she could read your message.

Purple socks--come over to the blue drawer! The red socks don't want you!

[applescruff]

The Republican Party has expanded Government and spent more than any Democratic Administrtaion up until this point. Now that they are powerless they claim that these are the things they are against .AGAIN. At least until their next time they are in power. If that ever happens again.

[applescruff]

The Republican Party is shrinking by the day and they keep trotting out the likes of Hannity,Bachman, Limpball,Palin and Steele to chase the remaining one's with any reason and independant thoughts out. Oh well. It's their funeral. The Only ideology the right stands by is to remain the Party of White only(W Token exceptions for political purposes) faux Christians and hypocritical bullies.

[patcoghm]

DAH

Fiscal responsibility is a thing of the past. Bush and Reagan both said deficits don't matter. Enough said for the Republicans. If you can't legislate your view against Democrat policy, then break the Government so when the Democrats return, all that's left is a broken economy. Then they have to gut their own policy and programs. Guess who won, Bush did and we'll all pay for it.

[ssfahrer]

It is those "Republicans in name only" like Ms. Snowe and Susan Collins, descendents of the "Rockefeller Republicans" of the 1960s (remember them???) who basically have been trying to turn the Republicans into pseudo-Democrats since the Anti-War Movement sprung up over U S involvement in VietNam...­. They were WRONG then, and are WRONG now. They should join Arlen Specter and become the Democrats thy really are. The Republican Party has been deceased in Maine for years-- it's about time Snowe and Collins left the rotten corpse, so that a new Republican Party can rise up from the maggot infested remains...­.

[Elephantinroom]

I couldn't agree more.

[martiniandabotoxchaser]

These folks are the only ones that keep the moderates in the party. Frankly, elections can't be won without the moderates as the numbers are not there for an all conservative party. The increasing involvement of youth and the increasing ethnic and cultural diversity of this nation mean that the Republican party must open its arms and broaden its appeal if it is to be a contender in a two party system.

[ultima]

Yes, all those Republican Congressmen and women who side with Obama's socialization programs and mortgaging of everyone's future should change parties immediately. That way when the chickens come home to roost we will know exactly who to blame for our nation's insolvency and leftwing government policies.

There is room in the Republican Party for moderates but this term is misused when it is applied to the likes of Snowe, Collins and Specter. They were in a position to force Obama et al to take a little different approach to the economic difficulties but they chose instead to capitulate. I guess Republicans are desperate to get any payoffs they can get for their votes in favor of Obama's programs.

How would one define a moderate Republican without characterizing one as a NeoLib?

[zuzuzpetals]

She uses the word "devastated" to describe how she feels when someone leaves her club and upsets her complacency, but is not "devastated" when Bush lies the country into war, or involves America in torture.

Simply cannot encompass how freakish these people seem to me.

And what does "ethnicity" have to do with party affiliation? What a coded statement of complacent and unconscious ruling class assumptions.

Hope she stays where she is. Who needs the democratic party being dragged to the right by these moles?

[FlipperAz]

Exactly

[Veritas 2009]

Senator Snowe's comment, ""I believe in the traditional tenets of the Republican Party: strong national defense, fiscal responsibility, individual opportunit­y." reveals her own revisionist folly. The first, and foremost tenet of the GOP is the maintenance of a Constitutional REPUBLIC as set forth by the Founders. The Second, is a smaller centralized Federal Government, strictly confined in size & power to it's Constitutional limits.
Neither of these principles find their way into Ms. Snowe's thinking, as her track record has proven.
She, like Senator Specter, is another Quisling who the GOP would be better off without. Under the pretense of being "moderate" she has played the roll of insurgent, spoiler, and mole...pop­ping up into the limelight just in time to sabotage GOP unity. Such people are despicably dishonorable, and should have no pace of honor amongst us; whether liberal r conservative.
A true "moderate" worthy of honor, is one who agrees with and is loyal to the Party objectives & principles, yet is moderate on how to achieve them. She has proven she unfamiliar with and hardly loyal to any of these things.

[prainva]

I would think, given your definition of the GOP, that you'd be pretty sick of the current crop of Republicans who have treated the Constitution like toilet paper and expanded the reach of the government security apparatus more deeply into our lives than at any time in our history. But that would require, you know, intellectual rigor and integrity.

[CJ1]

Actually, the term "spoiler" and "mole" are basically synonymous with "moderate" in the Repthug terminology. She didn't move lock step with the ruinous republican clones of the past eight years, and that is what you call a "spoiler"? She thought about issues and teamed up with Chafee of RI (r) and two democrats to form a voting block of sanity, compromise, and reason. And I believe the four of them voted against the war.

[nana4g]

Senator Snowe, regardless of which party she represents, represents her constitutents, and votes in their best interests. They will continue to send her back to the Senate whatever (R) or (D). I just think that she limits her contributions and her potential for much needed leadership by remaining in such a dysfunctional, narrow minded, rigid, party that has come to represent nothing about which she speaks. She is a gem and her party has basically ignored her gifts and talents, her intelligence, her potential. Instead, they chose a Palin for essentially the highest office of the land. She needs to exit; she has too much to offer. Even if she is happy being a Senator and nothing more, she can contribute more without the tainted label and affiliation with that party. She, too, can become "liberated". Republicans cannot "rebrand" on a phoney listening tour throughout the nation. They need to listen to what they themselves have been saying and not saying or doing and it will take a thorough overhaul before they are fit to serve.

[Vixter]

So let me get this right,,,You (the all encompassing republican You) think that anyone who disagrees with Rush, Bachman, Hannity, et al, should leave the GOP if they happen to have differing opinions - no discussion, compromise, nothing but the door?

Scary to think that the GOP has become the party of 'Good little Germans', following their leader into whatever, wherever, whenever - or leave the party.

Good news is that the Democratic Party will welcome all true Americans who want our country to succeed, not fail.

Wonder which party will grow & which will die off due to lack of common sense (which isn't common at all).

[nana4g]

A "moderate" Republican is one who does NOT agree with nor is loyal to the Party objectives and principles and is not interested in helping them achieve them, AS THOSE PRINCIPLES are represented today. The Republican Party is NOT what it used to be and what it is today, is nothing pretty or worth anyone of sanity and reason investing in. What I witnessed in that presidential campaign is nothing to be proud of and nothing to support. It appears their Principles are all about incendiary slander and irresponsibility and disrespect for the people and for the Constitution. We live with the evidence of their lack of competence because they have spent too much time within the confines of the "new conservative" culture and they create their own realities, which are usually divisive and ugly. They are not about Government; they are all about ugly politics and have no "principles" anymore. Their behavior since the election just speaks volumes.

[WilliamL]

I hope she leaves her ship of fools

[Lex10]

"ethnic heritage"!?!?! what, rich whitey?

[Katherine Lott]

Pay attention, Lex, she's saying she's a Spartan. You know, GREEK. Jesus Christ, is everyone with pale skin a WASP to you? (She's not even pale, she's obviously Mediterranean. Her father's an immigrant. lol)

She's gonna fight like a Spartan, too, right until death, cuz that ship ain't sailing.

[Lex10]

Oh she's Greek! I though she was a rich whitey!
Oh yeah - still is!

[VivaZapata]

Dear Olympia,
Being stodgy isn't enough to claim allegiance to the GOP; you're gonna have to get out or be voted out. Voting with the president is good enough for me, but many people (presumably Maine as elsewhere) are getting sick of the tone and points of view of the mouthpieces known as Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly and Hannity. They are now representatives of your party, and Democrats should be very thankful for their jabbering which continues to push people like Specter out of the Republican Party. It is lost to pols like you forever.

[nana4g]

In the past 24 hours, so far, Senator Snowe has tthree opportunities to "fight" for the principles of her party. She can issue a public statement disavowing the comment of Republican Congresswoman from Tenneesee made about the "hoax" story of Matthew Shepherd's death in committee hearings; she can publicly censure that colleague and she can also shame this guy for his statement about Senator Specter's illness and all those who have had chemotherapy. She can also publicly shame the RNC for the video they are working on about the President's first 100 days in which he is slandered and accused of unAmerican activities and she can insist that they put it into the trash heap.

It will be a full time job for her to do this but someone in that party needs to begin to speak up. Until I see and hear a Republican publicly disavowing the likes of Rush, Hannity, Bachmann, Foxx, the RNC, and all else who are being unprofessional and slanderous, I remain unimpressed with their efforts to "rebrand" themselves and "expand their tent". They are morally and intellectually bankrupt and if this intelligent woman with character and integrity intends to stay in that party, she needs to speak up.

[jsehgal]

I wans't aware the RNC was making a Obama-tras­hing-100-d­ay video. I am sure when it comes out, it will embarrass America and RNC will lose some more.

[nana4g]

There was an article on HP earlier today. The first draft was so incendiary, they recalled it to "edit" it, apparently. They are planning another tea party before July 4. They are going to eventually hang themselves and someone is going to go to the slammers for it.

[Jamie Kowalski]

Snowe is perhaps the only one left I would welcome to our side. Not without some reservations, mind you.

Not that it wouldn't be satisfying to see yet more of them try to jump ship, but they'd be better off trying to form a new party that falls somewhere left of NeoCon City.

[VivaZapata]

What about her Maine counterpart?

[AuntieLola]

Moderate Republican is becoming an oxymoron.

[ContraEgoiste]

The GOP / Cons had principles?? Who knew??