Via Dave Weigel, a new poll from Public Policy Polling shows that by a 2:1 margin, Maine Republicans would back a conservative challenger to Olympia Snowe:
Tough future for Snowe as a Republican
It looks like Olympia Snowe could have a pretty hard time getting nominated for another term in the Senate as a Republican.
There are now more folks in her party who disapprove than approve of Snowe's job performance. 46% of GOP voters think she's doing a bad job to 40% who give her good marks.
The key nugget:
Asked how they would vote in a primary contest between Snowe and a more conservative challenger, just 31% of likely Republican voters say they would pick Snowe while 59% say they would go for the conservative alternative.
This poll adds weight to the argument that Democrats who want to seal the deal on health care reform ought to push Joe Lieberman aside, and instead pursue Olympia Snowe.
Even though Snowe's trigger plan is unacceptable as policy, it's clear that she is far more interested in passing health care reform than Lieberman, and the fact that as a Republican she's willing to support a trigger suggests that as a Democrat, she'd at least support an opt-out public option.
From Snowe's perspective, quitting the GOP and becoming a Democrat would be a no-brainer:
- Snowe no longer fits in the modern "teabagging" GOP and will lose a primary in 2012. Even if she opposed health care reform, she'll never live down her vote for the stimulus. Between this poll and Dede Scozzafava's experience NY-23, Snowe should realize that her career as a Republican is over.
- At the Federal level, Maine is inhospitable to the kinds of candidates the state's GOP is interested in nominating. Three-fifths of Maine voters supported President Obama and House Democrats in 2008, and the only way Snowe and Collins have won re-election is by presenting themselves as RINOs. Now that RINOs are DOA in the GOP, if Snowe managed to turn far enough to the right to win the GOP nomination in 2012, she'd end up losing the general by costing herself the state's moderate and progressive voters.
- Snowe is not up for re-election until 2012. If she waits until her re-election, any switch will be viewed with suspicion, but if she decides to switch now, she can claim to have done so based on
principal principle. (Edit note: I left that last typo up there because this comment on it cracked me up.) Democrats will welcome her with open arms as long as she doesn't play the "Lieberman obstructionist" role. She doesn't even need to vote for a public option -- she just needs to support cloture.
It's always possible that Olympia Snowe will figure out some way to survive as a Republican, but even if she does, what will she have gained? If (shudder) Republicans ever manage to regain a majority, does she really want to cast a vote for Jim DeMint as majority leader? And does she really want to spend the rest of her career in fear of the teabaggers? She'd be far better off as a Democrat -- and the Democrats would be far better off pursuing her than Joe Lieberman.