Snowe Job

Olympia Snowe, Republican Senator from Maine, announced that she will not be seeking another term.  Snowe was known as one of the leading moderates in the Republican wing of the Senate - but what does that mean?

Like it or not, in our two-party political structure, things get done in the middle.  Any time human beings are in a situation where there are two sides with opposing goals, nothing gets done until they both address the concerns of the other party and meet in the middle to get an agreement.  I spent much of my teaching career as a union leader, and I therefore found myself often in a position where I had to look at the other side's needs as well as my side's, and come to an agreement that addresses both, even if only partially.  It's really easy to dig in your heels and not give an inch, but that only results in conflict, not progress.  In the case of union negotiations, that would mean a strike, and both sides usually lose in that event.  In the case of the United States Congress, it means that nothing gets accomplished while the economy is in a fragile state, the infrastructure is crumbling, and people have real needs to be filled.

The fact that Senator Snowe is leaving, admittedly because she is frustrated by the gridlock in the Senate, is just another symptom of the times.  We could just as easily have pointed to Evan Bayh, a moderate Democrat, choosing to leave the Senate two years ago, or to Barack Obama's dogged insistence on trying to get the tea party Republicans to work with him on compromises in legislation.  The moderates are leaving, and with them goes any hope of making the deals that need to be made.

Can anything be done?  Well, sure, we could make sure that the President, a majority in the House, and at least 60 percent of the Senate are all from the same party, but what's the chance that will happen?  Maybe the Senate would change the filibuster rule to make it harder to block legislation with just 41 votes, but the minority party (whichever it is) would never go along with that.  No, I think our way out of this mess lies in the root cause of extremism ... something I'll save to discuss another day. 

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