Olympia Snowe is a wee young lass of 64, so I can understand why she’s throwing away all her principles and debasing herself in the face of a primary challenge:
Snowe stunned longtime Democratic colleagues Wednesday by blocking action on a small-business bill she co-wrote because Democratic leaders refused to allow a vote on an amendment they saw as a political hit job.
“Sen. Snowe actually wrote this bill,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), chairwoman of the Senate Small Business Committee. “She killed her own bill under the guise that she feels so strongly about reg reform.”
But Richard Lugar is 78 years old. He’s served six terms in the Senate, and has a great reputation as a foreign policy expert. He has 13 grandkids. Why in the hell is he pandering to the Tea Party to win another term?
As the politics of the 2012 election heat up, GOP Sen. Richard Lugar declined today to join Democrats in reintroducing an immigration measure he’s long supported.
[…] Lugar’s spokesman said Lugar did not join Democrats in reintroducing the federal legislation to help children of illegal immigrants – known as the DREAM Act, or Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors – because Democrats have politicized the issue.
He started his latest term as a steady voice on foreign policy and a proponent of reasonable compromise on key domestic issues. He’s going out as a scared old whiner who will do anything — including running away from the eminently reasonable immigration bill he helped propose — just to keep his seat.
Comrade Javamanphil
They are like the 38 year old starter whose fastball has lost 5 mph and yet they think they can still go out and throw one more complete game shutout (but knowing they have to rely on the junk.) At least in baseball somebody has the balls to tell them “you’re done.” Better overlords please.
JonF
The saddest part is that they’ll get no credit from the tea baggers for this pandering. They should both quit the GOP and run as indys.
Folderol & Ephemera
As far as I’ve been able to tell over the years, Lugar just doesn’t care very much about domestic issues — he’s a defense and foreign policy wonk. He’ll stick to his guns (as it were) on START and whatnot, but he doesn’t seem to have any problem with completely selling out on domestic policies if it’s convenient.
dricey
We can hope that none of this self-abasement will help them, they’ll go down against Tea Party/Norquist challengers in the primaries, and we can take both their seats. Then they can spend what’s left of their craven lives sipping tea brewed from the water of humiliation.
Jim C
@JonF:
I fail to see the sadness in that.
ChrisS
Great gods almighty … I guess I was being unrealistic in thinking that the inexorable slide further and further right by “serious” republicans was slowing down.
Guess not. Sigh.
It’s not often that a person gets to watch the end of the empire in slow motion. Then again, considering that there are more people alive at this point in time than in the history of the world … odds are good.
ornery curmudgeon
It might be teh Power thing, I hear it is addictive. And that it corrupts too.
Let’s not make this complicated.
ChrisS
@dricey:
Odds are just as good that the teatard wins the whole fucking thing this time around.
malraux
I suspect it was sad as pathetic not sad as in unfortunate.
Emma
Power is very attractive, isn’t it? Once you have a taste of it, you give up a great deal to keep it. When you are addicted to it after many years of having it, it eats all your principles away.
MoneyGal
Why is the Obama Admin openly calling for discrimination againt GLBT Americans? This man is no liberal. He is somewhat to the right of Richard M. Nixon.
From the ACLU:
The Department of Justice (DOJ) today filed a motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of New Mexico which seeks full separation pay for service members who were honorably discharged but had their separation pay cut in half because of “homosexuality.” In the past six years, 142 honorably discharged veterans had their separation pay cut in half because of the discriminatory policy. The total amount of separation pay withheld from those veterans is approximately $2.1 million.
Comrade Dread
And it won’t make a bit of difference to the Tea Party brigades what Snowe and Lugar do now.
If there’s anything worse to them than what they’d call a RiNO, it’s a spineless RiNO.
lacp
I’m not a fan of term limits, but Snowe and Lugar seem to be making an excellent argument for them.
batgirl
Snowe should do a Murkowski. Anyone know how that works in Maine?
cleek
how dare those politicians!
Snarki, child of Loki
And this is different from Arlen Specter, how exactly?
These guys just want to make sure that they leave the Senate feet-first, with a stiffy, just like their idol Strom Thurmond.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@MoneyGal: We all know that Nixon was a true friend to the homosexual.
PROTIP: The President does not, in fact, personally authorize everything the DOJ does.
low-tech cyclist
@JonF:
No, the saddest part is that they’ll get no (negative) credit from the Villagers for this pandering. The Dead Broders will continue to regard Snowe and Lugar as paragons of moderation and integrity, no matter what they do to suck up to the wingnuts.
geg6
@Snarki, child of Loki:
Well, to be fair to Spector, he didn’t completely sell out all of his values when he became a Dem, thus atoning slightly for the selling out of his values during the Bush administration.
Still didn’t get me to vote for his ass, but at least he saw the writing on the wall and came over to the light before going down in flames.
ETA: And I think I win the award for most cliches in one sentence for today. LOL
Uloborus
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
Another protip. Fighting to the last for a cause he personally thinks is fucked up is a lawyer’s job, responsibility, and ethical requirement. As such, it’s VERY hard to call any action taken in any case by a lawyer a result of some personal motivation. It usually takes something crazy, when they go out of the bounds of settled law, for you to be sure.
beergoggles
but. but.. both sides do it!
Xantar
So does anyone know if we have a strong candidate running for the Maine seat? If Olympia loses her primary, her seat seems very winnable.
danimal
They act as if Senators are shot on sight as soon as they lose a race. Jeez, it’s not like they can’t cash in with a lobbying firm, or take a dream vacation every month, or actually get to know their families.
There are worse things than losing an election; worse things, like losing you integrity or your humanity by sucking up to infantile idiots.
rikyrah
stuff like this is why I won’t feel bad when Snowe’s ass is teabagged.
Davis X. Machina
She could have waltzed into the Blaine House in 2010 as governor, too.
As an independent, in a three-way Senate race, she’d be an absolutely prohibitive favorite.
I bet she’s got Lisa Murkowski on speed-dial. Snowe can’t wait to see the results of the primary, though. We’ve got a the weak form of the sore-loser law.
Georgia Pig
I think it’s more a need to maintain a social matrix than a lust for power. Snowe and Lugar have been in Congress for so long, all of their social ties are inextricably bound to the Senate, their identity is nothing other than “senator.” Unlike some others who have retired and walked away, neither will have much of a following as an elder statesperson because the Republican parties in Maine and Indiana are pretty much full wingnut and they have no standing among Democrats. They look at what happened to Spector and surmise that is not an option. Neither of them has the family dynasty and the weird politics of Alaska to cover them as independents, like Murkowski. Thus, they see going wingnut as the only option. After all, it did work for McCain, who is again being adored by the Village because of a few measly speeches about torture, while doing absolutely fucking nothing about it.
NonyNony
Lugar is almost 80.
I mean, I can see Snowe worrying about stuff like that, but Lugar should be thinking about retiring, spending some quality time with the great grand-kids and writing up his memoirs.
I mean I could see if he wanted to go out in style, upholding his principles to the end then sure. But to debase himself before the Teabaggers just to see himself lose in the primary (and he will – the baggers HATE AND DESPISE Lugar in Indiana right now).
And I don’t even have the consolation of thinking that he might get replaced by a Dem- Indiana is a lot of Kentucky in that respect. If the Tea Party finds an Indiana Rand Paul to run we’ll have another Rand Paul in the Senate because God Forbid you vote for a Democrat…
PeakVT
@Georgia Pig: That sounds right, though of course there’s no reason it can’t be both about power and identity.
mds
@ChrisS:
In Indiana? Possibly. But in Maine, a fight on the right could open things up. If Snowe got primaried out but still ran as an independent, she’d still probably pull it off, but it would be less of a sure thing. And if she stayed out, a Dem would have a good chance, as long as non-Republican candidates didn’t split the vote (which is how Kochsucker LePage ended up as governor with 38% of the vote).
@geg6:
Indeed. Remember when his desperate plan for survival backfired and Sestak got the nod, so he dedicated what remained of his career to ostentatiously shitting all over the Democratic agenda in the Senate? Me neither. Oodles more grace in his loss than that smug mendacious little shit Lieberman showed in victory.
Davis X. Machina
@Georgia Pig:
Snowe has a Murkowski-esque network already. She is Mrs. Maine GOP. Her people have been vocal in telling LePage to chill. Her husband, e.g., was the state’s last non-insane Republican government. And Maine has a very strong independent-non-party-bipartisan tradition: two of the last five governors — 7,000 votes away from three of the last five governors — were independent. Bill Cohen, a Republican senator, served as Clinton’s SecDef, etc.
Very Jim-Jeffords-esque.
WereBear
That would assume he has a) hobbies, b) cares about kids, and c) has an interest in his legacy.
Mark S.
Those are two pretty broad fucking categories to exempt from emissions regulations. Since paying attention to Snowe and Collins for the last two years, I sometimes honestly can’t tell if they’re stupid or extremely cynical. They both must be complete pains in the ass to work with.
Barry
@danimal: “There are worse things than losing an election; worse things, like losing you integrity or your humanity by sucking up to infantile idiots.”
I would guess that very few Senators (living, dead and in-between) think that.
blondie
An excerpt from a comment I posted on Benen’s post yesterday: This must be why Congress wants to raise the retirement age – they can’t imagine anyone not loving their jobs like they do!
gene108
And don’t forget the snazzy pension Congresscritters get.
I mean getting a $170,000 per year as a retiree, plus full medical benefits doesn’t seem like a raw deal to me for getting fired from your job.
priscianus jr
I don’t understand why these folks just don’t switch parties, or start a new party, or at least go independent. Seriously. I know it’s tough, but really, is it worth all this squandering and pandering?
priscianus jr
@Georgia Pig:
Fred
This is another reason why senators should have term limits. As if there aren’t already enough reasons.
ChrisS
@Fred:
I don’t think that you should qualify for office if your networth exceeds twice the median American household’s net worth.
Davis X. Machina
@priscianus jr: In Snowe’s case, she has a colorable argument that the cliché “I didn’t leave the Party, the Party left me‘ is, in her case, in fact the case.
I think she thinks she that if she can just hang on until the fever breaks, the GOP — the real GOP, the one she came up in, and her husband came up in — comes into its own once more.
ChrisS
@Davis X. Machina: Then she’s much more optimistic than I am. I don’t see peak wingnut anytime this century.
I don’t even know what would have to happen to get people to reconsider why they’re following the 27%.
The economy collapses again? Obama’s and Democrats’ fault.
Energy prices skyrocket? Obama’s and environmentalists’ fault.
Crop yields decline? Obama’s and environmentalists’ fault.
Real wages continue to fall? Obama’s and Democrats’ fault.
Grandma is put down behind the barn? Obama’s death panels’ fault.
If none of that, miraculously, comes to pass? The republicans and tea party saved America by cutting taxes on the wealthy.
NaveenM
Pandering with red meat is one thing, but completely flipping on an issue (and presumably your own beliefs) is beyond me. What’s the point of being there if you aren’t doing what you believe in?
Stupid question if you’re not a politician, I suppose. What most of them won’t do to stay in power.
JCT
So delightful that in times when we most need folks to STFU and do their jobs that they were elected to do and are paid to do — all they can do is play cynical self-serving games. These guys aren’t stupid, they’re CRAVEN.
It’s just fucking ludicrous at this point. The democrats have to go 110% all-in next year and reduce these useless Republicans to the farthest rump of Congress so that some work can get done.
cmorenc
@Jim C:
The sadness is that they once enjoyed bona fide reputations for independent integrity from the party ideologues on issues of national importance, and were willing to take a bona fide bipartisan approach on many of these matters.
The sadness is how totally and cheaply they’ve sold out that integrity in the grip of panicky fear at the now-dominant extremist elements within their party, in hopes of appeasing them. It’s as sad to watch them attempt to humbly bow and scrape to attempt to curry enough favor with the Tea Partiers and extreme ideologues to survive another election cycle as it would have been to watch Marie Antoinette attempt to escape the guillotine by baking sweet cakes for the bloodthirsty crowds lining the paths to her execution through the streets of Paris.
cmorenc
@ChrisS:
That approach doesn’t solve the other truly fundamental problem of the current electoral system: how and from whom do you raise the enormous ante of cash that’s requisite for a serious run at a major federal office? For every $1 million you need to spend on a US Senate race, you must raise $457 EVERY SINGLE DAY over a six-year period (i.e. same as your prospective term of office), weekends, holidays, etc. included. Even for a congressional race, that’s $1371 per day over a two-year period. Since most candidates for US Senate don’t get a six-year financial runup before committing to run for office, the actual rate of intake is much steeper per million than that.
Paul in KY
Lugar desires that one more term (although at only 75, he could theoretically go for 2 or 3 more). Senators know (generally) how long each has served, past Senators from their state, how long they served, etc.
He wants to move up a spot or two in the Most-Senate-Terms race. he won’t beat Sen. Byrd, but if he gets another term or two, he has trump on those that didn’t serve as long (plus a bigger pension).
It’s a form of hubris, IMO.
Another Bob
That’s always the trouble with “moderate” Republicans. They’re willing to play the “mavericky” game when the stakes are low or non-existent. In the end, however, any Republican is always a zombie apparatchik at heart.