Reform Rx – Missing Snowe & Collins, Inc.

The Maine Senate delegation serving corporate interests need to leave office when their terms are up. From Susan Collins’ refusal to engage Maine citizens in any substantive way on health care reform to Olympia Snowe’s dashing any hopes for a Maine voice of reason supporting a robust set of health care reforms, I am resigned to dismissing their poor representation of us as their usual game. They have not lived up representing their constituents fairly.

In the meantime, we are saddled with their inadequate grasp of domestic issues in particular and their peculiar allegiance to outside corporate interests who are not interested in Maine citizens, save a bit of financial extraction of our modest to poor means for their profits. While I realize we must press them on every key issue while they remain in office on the slight hope that they might consent to bargain for something that steers them into representing us by accident, it is time for them to leave when their term is up. Based on their actions regarding health care reform, that’s the best Rx.

What I will miss about Snowe & Collins, Inc. for five minutes is:

- The false proclamations of moderation used to cover their conservative Republican voting records.
- The outside Maine media panting for our Senators’ to go against the grain only to find out once again that they are made of conservative Republican fiber.
- The endless wooing dances to get one of them on board as a bipartisan backer but getting stepped upon by their demands for changes that destroy intent and effectiveness.
- The myth that they are good old rock bed rugged individuals who speak independently for like-minded Maine citizens except when a campaign contribution or corporate financial interest is at stake.
- The right wing smoke screen about RINOs and Republican purity setting them up as victims of the right while they march, with a very few limited minor exceptions, lockstep with the conservative band.
- The avoidance tactics, hollow moderate credentials burnishing, dismissing attitudes by their staffs, chuckling comments at our expense, and the deterioration of authentic Maine representation and examples of real bipartisan leadership given us by Margaret Chase Smith, Edmund Muskie, Bill Cohen, and George Mitchell.