Olympia Snowe and the Poor Moderates

So Olympia Snowe has written a self-justifying op-ed about why she is retiring:

Some people were surprised by my conclusion, yet I have spoken on the floor of the Senate for years about the dysfunction and political polarization in the institution. Simply put, the Senate is not living up to what the Founding Fathers envisioned.

Naturally the MSM will eat this up.  There's good stuff on this from Matt Yglesias and Jon Chait that really makes the point. This is Chait:

When George W. Bush proposed a huge, regressive tax cut in 2001, Snowe, sitting at the heart of a decisive block of centrists, used her leverage to support the passage of a modestly smaller and less regressive version. When Barack Obama proposed a large fiscal stimulus in 2009, Snowe (citing fears of deficits that she had helped create) decided to shave a nice round $100 billion off his figure and call it a day. If a Gingrich administration proposed spending a trillion dollars to erect a 100- foot-tall solid-gold Winston Churchill statue on Mars, Snowe would no doubt decide, after careful deliberation, that the wise course was to trim the height down to 90 feet and perhaps use a cheaper bronze alloy in the base.

The characteristic Snowe episode came during the health care fight. The Obama administration, desperate to win her vote, wooed her with endless meetings and pleas, affording her a once-in-a-generation chance to not only help pass health care reform but make it smarter, more efficient, and more compassionate. Instead, Snowe tormented the administration by dangling an elusive and ever-changing criteria before their noses. She at first centered her objections around the inclusion of a public option. Democrats removed it, and she voted for the bill in the Finance Committee, only to turn against it when it reached the decisive vote on the Senate floor. Snowe complained that the process was happening too fast, and that it was too partisan, which seemed to be her way of saying she wouldn’t vote for it unless other Republicans joined her.

Look Olympia Snowe, like other moderate Republicans, had no good options.  Join with Democrats on the Health Care bill, and she would have faced a primary challenge in Maine.  So since the election of Barack Obama she has been unable to demonstrate her moderation because the leadership of the GOP demanded perfect discipline so Democrats wouldn't be able to use her vote as bipartisan cover.

When this happened to Arlen Specter, though, he went a different route.  He took a couple of moderate votes, saw that he was going to get primaried by the radical right, and switched parties.  The fact is that moderate Democrats (not my favorite people, by the way) can survive right now, but moderate Republicans can't- party discipline is too strong.

Olympia Snowe's problem was caused by Republicans, though.  It would be nice if she'd say that.