My take: Harry Reid has been counting votes and has decided he doesn't need her. She's overplayed her hand.

It sounds to me as if she's leaving a door pretty wide open to supporting this bill down the line. Note, she doesn't say she's withdrawing her support.

More importantly, by not saying she's withdrawing her support, she wants to keep herself relevant, in the debate. Also, if in a parallel universe, if she supports a PO, I think its a huge signal she is ready to change party letter from R to D.

Isn't at least one group running commercials in Maine?

That should continue or double or something. We need to engineer a situation where if the Maine senators fail to vote with their constituents on this, there will be consequences for them.

This is sort of reminding me of when John McCain claimed that Obama's refusal to do weekly town halls is the reason why he resorted to attack ads and winking nods to the insane rightwing base.

To wit: "Even though you're in the position of strength in all the ways that count, you should still listen to me and do what I want. Why aren't you listening to me? I'm deeply disappointed that you have decided to treat me as if I'm now irrelevant to the process. Come on! I was enjoying the spotlight for a while there!"

Who's she think she's kiddin? Not one friggin rethug besides her would even think of voting for a trigger. "Broader bipartisan support" my ass.

I really wonder why she did this. Can't say that I will miss seeing her Olive-Oil act anymore. I think Republicans started to believe their own hype.

She comes from a state where the people only have (I believe) one insurance company to choose from.

I just checked. They have one - Anthem Health. I guess they are funding her big time

Olympia Snowe was just stringing things along with the pretense of participating. The longer this went, the greater the chance of defeating it outright, or crippling the resulting bill. In no case was there ever going to be any bipartisan support from this Republican party. None.

"...could have been the road toward achieving a broader bipartisan consensus in the Senate."

Well, Olympia you should have dug out your magic wand much earlier if you really believe this. There was no evidence whatsoever that you were bringing anyone along but yourself. If one Republican can make a consensus "bipartisan" then you can still pull this trick off all by yourself, by not trying to shut down the will of most Americans.

90% of her state's health insurance market is dominated by Blue Cross and she is 'Deeply Disappointed' that Public Option is in the Senate Bill? People of Maine, you need a new senator.

broader bipartisanship??? but it appears that having both the GOP and Dem parties working on this would not produce anything that would be of ultimate benefit to those in society that do not have access to healthcare coverage - would simply have maintained the leverages the Ins. companies have exercised to extract 420% increased in earnings. - well, yes indeed, we need a paradigmatic shift in our thinking and priorities - and who it is that we charge with being our leaders.

Snowe flurries cleared up, apparently.

i am very happy with this week's proceedings. however, i don't get the hate on snowe. to me, it seems vindictive and unbecoming of (victorious for the moment) progressives. she tried to move the debate in a civil manner. she played her cards fairly, and she lost. she's just looking for some political cover at this point. can you blame her?

Who care cares what the ugly old bitch thinks about anything? Another small-stater who represents no one. Maine can just opt out if they want (but they won't).

Oh well, it's heartbreaking to realyze that you're NOT really the presdent, as you might have thought over the past few months.