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Family Research Council PAC: We Would Support A Primary Against Olympia Snowe
Eric Kleefeld | November 11, 2009, 5:40PM
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME)
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I just spoke to Connie Mackey, president of the Family Research Council Action PAC, and she told me that if a conservative candidate were to emerge to run against Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) in the 2012 Republican primary, FRC Action will back them.
"Well of course there is an audience that would love to see Olympia Snowe out of office, within the ranks of social conservatives, that's for certain," said Mackey.
A new survey from Public Policy Polling (D) found that a generic conservative challenger would lead the moderate Snowe in a Republican primary by a whopping 59%-31% margin.
"I think a couple years ago, we wouldn't have thought it was possible," said Mackey. "However, those numbers are interesting, and I think those numbers might just track the fact that a lot of Americans are waking up to the liberal policies, what they mean and how they're playing out. And it may be affecting her, with her votes for the stimulus, and breaking from her party. And we would like to see a conservative have a chance to remove her from office up there."
As luck would have it, Mackey is headed up to New Hampshire this weekend for a regional Family Research Council conference on family policy. And she expects that this subject will probably come up in her discussions with FRC members from Maine. Mackey reiterated that nobody would have expected to see numbers like this until now, "so now the process of discussion will begin."
I asked Mackey whether this could turn into another case like the recent NY-23 special election, in which FRC Action supported Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman against Republican Dede Scozzafava, only to end in a victory by Democratic candidate Bill Owens. Mackey said it had surprised a lot of people when the GOP nominated a candidate as liberal as Scozzafava, and that a key difference here is that Maine would have a primary.
"Well, I think that New York 23 actually had a shot. It wasn't automatic that the Democrat would win that one," Mackey explained. "I think a primary is a whole different situation completely. Would we support a conservative against Olympia Snowe in a primary? Yes."
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Michael A
November 11, 2009 5:48 PM
Pass the popcorn. They just keep eating their own. Soon they will be a rump southern party and then they will cease to exist. How can they be so blind? We are in the 21st Century, not the 19th Century.
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mans_best_friend
November 11, 2009 5:51 PM in reply to Michael A
The disturbing thing is the number of people advocating that the Dems do likewise.
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Michael A
November 11, 2009 5:55 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
True, but the vocal minority is either being ignored or has too little power to pull this off. The repuke vocal minority on the other hand has the faux non-news noise machine to push their agenda and wipe out "moderates" like snowe.
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mans_best_friend
November 11, 2009 6:02 PM in reply to Michael A
The path they're on is clearly unsustainable. One of two things has to happen:
1. The sane people regain control of the Republican party
2. The party fractures completely, ceasing to be a force in American politics for a generation.
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Michael A
November 11, 2009 6:29 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
Sane people will never regain control of the repuke party as long as faux-news keeps pushing the far right-wing agenda and making elected repukes toe the far reich wing line. It's funny, the noise machine thinks that it is helping repukes and taking down dems, but in reality it is helping dems by destroying the repuke party. It's that karma thing. Eventually at this rate, the repuke party will cease to exist. It will have zero power and be irrelevant.
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mans_best_friend
November 11, 2009 10:53 PM in reply to Michael A
It may cease to exist in its present form, but I don't think it's going to just whither away. I think it's more likely to fracture violently. It's already an uneasy coalition between the Wall St. Republicans, the neocons and the religious fundies. The neocons have been pretty marginalized, leaving the other two groups to duke it out for control. Neither really has much love for the other so they're together out of expediency, but once the ship starts taking on water...well, you know what always happens. Another big election day loss and they'll start pointing fingers at each other and the coalition will crumble.
The last time this happened, the fragments of the Whig party plus northern Democrats eventually coalesced around the abolitionist movement to become the Republican party. This time I don't see a real movement for the fragments to coalesce around, and I can't begin to guess how this is going to play out. This is real-time experiments in political science, boys and girls.
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jegan
November 12, 2009 10:57 AM in reply to Michael A
You know, Michael, it might help the "cause" so to speak if you could somehow resist the temptation to employ such florid language in your description of the Republican Party these days. Those of us in the center have been absolutely appalled by the imagery and the rhetoric coming from the likes of the Tea Partiers: that Obama is the next Hitler, that national health care is a National Socialist plot to kill all of our grandmothers, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. You've seen and heard it - really repugnant stuff, for which the so-called "mainstream" GOP has been rightly criticized for not distancing itself from. So when you start yapping on about the "far reich wing" and the "repuke" party, it really does give the nitwit GOP grist for the mill and has the effect of surrendering the high moral ground to the likes of Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Palin, et al. Please act like more of a grown-up.
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Turnaround
November 11, 2009 6:31 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
Maybe we shouldn't point out the obvious to them, and just watch the train wreck in slow motion?
Isn't it delicious?
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McMia
November 11, 2009 6:27 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
Just curious mans be. Is there anything a Democratic Senator could do, anything, be it voting for the Stupik language, privatizing Social Security, against cap and trade, anything, that would make it legitimate for liberals/progressives to call for a primary against that Dem Senator?
Or are you one of these people that actually believes having the D after their name is the most important thing, regardless of policy positions?
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bluebell
November 11, 2009 6:47 PM in reply to McMia
"D" is the new "R".
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FreeRider
November 11, 2009 7:06 PM in reply to McMia
Oh, stop being so dramatic! It's one thing to take out Democratic senators like Specter and Lieberman because there's a very, very good chance they'd be replaced by a more liberal Democrat.
But if you think you can do better than Landrieu, Lincoln and Nelson, I want some of what you're smoking.
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bluebell
November 11, 2009 7:23 PM in reply to FreeRider
I don't know how you could do worse.
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FreeRider
November 11, 2009 8:37 PM in reply to bluebell
If you think we'd be better off having another Jim DeMint from AR or LA or Nebraska who would obstruct and NEVER vote with the Democrats is better than having Lincoln or Landrieu who votes with the Dems 80% of the time, then you're as stupid and self-destructive as the teabaggers!
But we already knew that.
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AJM
November 11, 2009 11:49 PM in reply to FreeRider
Progressive Punch scores for Ben Nelson are that his life time score of voting with the progressive on crucial votes is 43.66 and for this session on crucial votes 38.89; life time general votes with the progressive 53.40, this session 61.35.
I was going to say -- wait for it -- that there was one Democratic Senator with worse scores: Sen. Spector but that turns out not to be true -- Spector voted better than Nelson did in this last session. Nelson, this session has last place all to himself.
So you tell me -- is Sen. Nelson a Dem or a Repuke?
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FreeRider
November 12, 2009 10:58 AM in reply to AJM
"Progressives" who voted for McCain/Palin don't deserve responses.
Fuck off.
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FreeRider
November 11, 2009 7:02 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
But the people who think the Dems should root out the "unpure" have a better reason.
We won't have to worry about defections on key votes like healthcare if there were no Blue Dogs. Of course, there would never be any votes on healthcare without the Blue Dogs because the Republicans would never let them come to the floor!
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ClosetLuddite
November 11, 2009 5:54 PM
A million years ago Harlan Ellison wrote a short story called "Shatter'd Like a Glass Goblin" that had the perfect description of the gnawing sounds of the hideous goblin stripping the flesh off the bones of it's victims. That is precisely what came to mind when I imagined the GOP eating its' own.
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rambler american
November 11, 2009 5:56 PM
Time for Snowe to become a Democrat.
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bp23
November 11, 2009 6:01 PM
She won't become a Democrat - she'll run as an Independent. Long history of Independents getting elected here in Maine (Angus King served two terms as Governor recently as an I). That's her appeal anyway.
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Walter Mitty
November 11, 2009 6:15 PM in reply to bp23
Who would she caucus with? Would they give her seniority?
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DuaneW
November 11, 2009 6:43 PM
For the last few months, Snowe has been leaving not-so-subtle hints that she may bolt the GOP. With the overly-partisan healthcare debate and these threats of primary challenges, I suspect she'll go independent in a few weeks. However, her roots in the (formerly respectable) GOP are too strong for her to go all the way Democratic. Besides there's a very practical reason for her not to become a Democrat. She'll have an even more difficult time winning the Democratic primary. But as a beloved Mainer, she'll be a shoo-in to defeat both the Dem & Rep challengers.
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bluebell
November 11, 2009 6:50 PM in reply to DuaneW
I think having an "I" after your name could be an advantage to most candidates. Maybe if get enough "I"'s we'll finally get one or more movements for a real reform parties.
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VivaAmerica!
November 11, 2009 9:33 PM in reply to bluebell
What makes you so sure that these "reform" parties, once they have power, will be any different than the Democrats who you now claim are no different from Republicans?
When you say "reform" parties, I can't help but think about all the stories I've read of other "reform" parties in other parts of the world coming in to power, only to turn out to be just as corrupt or worse.
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FreeRider
November 11, 2009 8:39 PM in reply to DuaneW
If Snowe became a Democrat (which she won't) she would not have a primary challenger.
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Cal Gal
November 11, 2009 10:45 PM in reply to DuaneW
I like someone's suggestion yesterday that the last remaining lifeboat full of Republican "moderates" (read, not mouth-breathing tea baggers) Trademark and start calling themselves REAL Republicans, standing for (Teddy) Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Abe Lincoln. I think they could add Ford and make themselves the F-REAL Republicans, but maybe that's too close to "feral."
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Michael A
November 12, 2009 12:43 AM in reply to Cal Gal
I like that idea.
However, one point is that TR, Lincoln and Eisenhower were more democratic than even the democrats of today. Kind of frightening when you think about it. And the teabaggers were running all over the convention last year praising TR. Problem was that he was very progressive, busted up trusts, etc., etc. Real educated bunch.
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Overreach THIS!
November 12, 2009 3:10 AM in reply to DuaneW
So what would the advantage in being an I?
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Prysmith
November 11, 2009 7:46 PM
The Democratic party does not need her. She will turn out to be Lieberman in drag (or do I repeat myself?).
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Solomon Drek
November 11, 2009 9:42 PM
"a generic conservative challenger would lead the moderate Snowe in a Republican primary by a whopping 59%-31% margin."
Generic challengers almost always beat an incumbent. If they had put "none of the above" on the ballot in New Jersey last week it would have gotten more votes than all the other named candidates put together.
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Scoopernicus
November 11, 2009 10:03 PM
It should be noted that beloved GOP figures in main have been primaried out before. Margaret Chase Smith was primaried out by William Cohen (later Clinton's Defense Secretary) of course that was just trading one moderate Republican for another. What was at issue was Smith's age.
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Scoopernicus
November 11, 2009 10:05 PM
Oh crap strike my comment. Cohen didn't replace smith. Never mind. (bangs head against wall)
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ejg3
November 11, 2009 10:12 PM
These folks see Maine as somewhere over the rainbow, particularly after the recent vote on same sex marriage and probably will borrow another theme from the same movie and have a cartooned Snowe scream I'm melting.
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Mr Mxyzptlk
November 12, 2009 12:13 AM
This is the best news I've read in a long time. As another commenter wrote, Snowe will not change parties. I do think she'd win a primary, but it would use up resources. I admire Snowe, but would prefer to have a Democrat in there.
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Steve Gilpatrick
November 12, 2009 6:55 AM
Last time I checked, Maine wasn't Montana. The Dems would eat a right wing Christian candidate alive. Lived here all my life, that fish won't bite.
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holyhandgrenaid
November 12, 2009 9:03 AM
I don't see Snowe pulling a Specter. Now a Jeffords on the other hand...
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Ethan
November 13, 2009 3:17 AM
Sucks to be you, Senator.
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