Snowe: Get out while you can, babe

Interesting interview with Sen Olympia Snowe in today’s NY Times. She appears to be not only the only Republican Senator willing to work with Pres Obama to make sure health care reform passes, she seems to be the only Republican Senator unwilling to condemn him as a big-spending liberal.

Ms. Snowe dismisses the Republican characterization of Mr. Obama as a big-government liberal moving heedlessly to expand Washington’s role. “I almost sense the opposite,” Ms. Snowe said. “He’s been very realistic in his views on health care."

And as many moderate and non-insane Republicans have done, she comes to this conclusion:

“I haven’t changed as a Republican,” she said. “I think more that my party has changed.”

No duh.

Of course, the party has been changing for most of her life. Ever since Nixon decided to adopt the “Southern strategy” to win the White House in 1968, the GOP has been on a steady course, not towards conservatism — at least not the kind that Goldwater stood for, one that championed a government small enough to allow gays the privacy to marry — but towards an ideological purity that champions nothing but the acquisition and maintenance of power for power’s sake.

The Republican Party has no moral or ethical center. Some Republicans are corporate greedheads and nothing more; government, for them, is an instrument to ensure the ability to maximize profit, no matter the cost. Others are religious fanatics, seeing government as an instrument handed down by God — or, as is currently the case, condemned by God — to manifest religious beliefs in the secular world. To save that world. Before God sends most of it to hell for eternity. Still other Republicans want to embrace some kind of libertarianism, but they are unwilling to share the country with those who have differing beliefs, supporting DOMA-type laws, restrictions on free speech, and various other forms of government tyranny that are purely anti-conservative and anti-libertarian but, at least, keep “them” in their place.

The GOP, in other words, is a fracked-up mess. Thoughtful, considerate moderates like Snowe or Arlen Spector have no place in this party. Specter cut and ran to save his political ass, and Snowe may be forced to do so if she ends up supporting Obama on health care. The question is: where does she go? Does she, like Specter, become a pseudo-Democrat (which may not be good enough to save his Senate seat, since he’ll be facing a real Democrat in the primary)? Does she go indie, like Liebermann and fellow New Englander Bernie Sanders? Or will she wise up and realize the nation needs a new party, one that allows moderates and Goldwater-style conservatives to unite on a platform of beliefs that champion a positive form of government, albeit a limited and rightward-focussed one, and allows them to walk away from the wingnuts who’ve taken over and nearly destroyed their party without having to become Democrats?

I’m not looking to wish for a strong challenger to the Democratic Party, which I support and will continue to work for. But we need opposition that is honest, that cares about the country and that gives a voice to Americans who can support neither the Dems nor the GOP. These Americans need a political home, and American politics needs for them to have a voice and a means of challenging both the Dems and the crazies who’ve taken over and almost annihilated the Republican Party. Whether Snowe will be the one to do that, I don’t know. But I don’t see how she can continue in the party and try to be an honest representative of the people. If she ends up voting for health care reform of any kind, the party will turn on her and attack with viciousness. She should be smart and get out of Dodge now.

With her middle finger pointed at Boehner, Cantor and the rest of the nutjobs in the GOP who care far less about the nation than about grabbing back power at any cost.