Howard Fineman: Obama's Pointless Pursuit Of Olympia Snowe

Olympia Snowe: The Linchpin Of Obama's Pointless Quest For Bipartisanship

On Mount Olympus in Greece there were many gods, but on Mount Olympia in the District of Columbia there is one: Snowe of Maine, daughter of Spartan immigrants (yes, that Sparta). A Republican of the rarest type--a "moderate" willing to truck with Democrats--she is being feted, almost prayed to, by President Barack Obama and his party's leaders as they struggle in the Senate to amass a filibuster-proof 60 votes for "health-care reform." In the halls outside the chamber, every Democrat seems to have just come from, or be on the way to, another "meeting with Olympia"--if, that is, she isn't too busy talking to the president on the phone.

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