Snowe Tacks Right With Tea Party
Last week, colorful Tea Party activist Andrew Ian Dodge announced that he will be the second Republican entering the 2012 primary election against Senator Olympia Snowe.
The day before, in what is likely more concerning news for the Senator, the Tea Party Express, a powerful national activist group known for defeating moderate Republicans, announced it has begun raising money to launch a campaign against her re-election.
News like this, along with low poll numbers among likely Republican primary voters, seems to have made Snowe a bit more conscious of the need to reach out to her party's conservative wing. This became apparent yesterday when she submitted a long letter in response to a set of questions sent to her by the Tea Party group Maine Refounders.
Some of the answers from her response shows a different side of the Senator than the one most Maine people have known in the past.
In March of 2010, when the Affordable Care Law passed, Snowe's objections to the law were mostly about process and technical issues within the law. The only time she mentioned the individual mandate in her contemporary press releases on the subject or in her statement on the Senate floor was as a reason why there should be more access to certain plans:
"That’s why I asked CBO what the impact would be of opening the bill’s catastrophic coverage, or so-called “young invincibles” plan, to all Americans and extending subsidies in the bill to that coverage…as a means of ensuring that everyone has at least one affordable option to purchase. Because given the federal government is requiring for the first time that individuals purchase health insurance…and given the bill also sets new standards for plans to meet that could drive up premium costs for certain individuals and small businesses…shouldn’t we have certainty that affordable choices are available?
Where Snowe's tone was once dissapointment about the outcome of the bill, now it's anger.
Snowe's statement to the Tea Party calls the Affordable Care Act an "egregious assault on individual freedom and the free-market system," particuarly the individual mandate.
She tactfully declines to endorse the Maine Republican Party's Tea Party-inspired platform, but there are other answers where a shift to the right is also apparent.
The first question that Snowe answers stands out. Snowe is asked "Would you support a law Banning Sharia Law in the U.S.?" Instead of choosing not to endorse the Tea Party's conspiracy theory that Muslims are attempting to take over America's legal system, she decides to give their paranoia the official stamp of a U.S. senator.
Snowe says that "I would strongly oppose any and all attempts to apply Sharia law in the United States," then lists some of the worst aspects of the islamic legal system, such as amputations and stoning, then takes things a step further, declaring that "I oppose the use of foreign laws in interpreting federal or state laws or - even more troubling - the U.S. or state constitutions."
Members of the Tea Party group say they sent questions to all four of Maine's members of Congress. Snowe was the only one to reply.
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- Mike Tipping
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spin baby spin
Another fine piece of opinion without facts.You would serve well writing spin speech's for the dem's in maine.That will help assure republicans in the blaine house.thank you
Where are your facts
Mr. Tipping,
You are seemingly irritated by the Tea Party and love to spin your opinion without any factual basis.
Where are your facts to support this statement. "Instead of choosing not to endorse the Tea Party's conspiracy theory that Muslims are attempting to take over America's legal system"
While I understand that you and "Maine People's Alliance" suffered a major setback in the election of Republicans in the state. You will not be able to gain traction again with your increasingly negative commentary. Recognize that there are some things the Tea Party may or may not be aligned with your organization with. One thing they are definitely not aligned with is your support of sanctuary cities and illegal immigrants. What is it you do not understand about the term "illegal". If we were dumping raw sewage in the woods, you would probably be up in arms over it being illegal. What your running commentary says to me is that you operate with a double standard.
Senator Snowe, respectfully answered questions posed to her. The majority of people in this state respect the Senator and I do not see her responding to questions as a detriment to this. Neither do I see it as tacking right. She has been clear on her positions and I have found nothing in her responses that indicated to me that she has changed her long standing position. Again you have failed to do your homework and you have failed to get it right. Why don't you become a sports writer and do color commentary.
Senator Snowe
Senator Snowe will be easily re-elected, therefore i suggest stop playing Tea Party games as this lady has more integrity than Collins and a better representative for Maine than anyone you might come up with to defeat her.
John d.