On Olympia Snowe's Retirement

First of all, this is the best news I've heard in a very long time.

Second of all, I entirely sympathize with her lack of interest in continuing to be a Senator. I particularly empathize with her lack of interest in continuing to be a Republican Senator; she is probably the person for whom living under Mitch McConnell's party discipline regime is the most onerous, and most requires her to support positions she doesn't actually believe in. That's got to be fairly little fun.

But as this little post on TalkingPointsMemo notes, her statement reads almost exactly like Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN)'s retirement statement. Washington's so damn partisan, and the Senate particularly so, so they're getting out to make a difference. But, uh, guys? You know how you make a difference? You stay and fight. Being a U.S. Senator means you have a whole lot of Power. Formally, you have one-hundredth of one-half of one-third of the power of the U.S. government, which is one-six-hundredth of the largest power in the world. Informally, people like Snowe and Bayh, by positioning themselves as marginal Senators on numerous issues, had much more real-life power than that. If centrist-y types like the two of them, Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, etc. would stick around instead of retiring and being replaced by generic partisans, there would be a substantial bloc of moderates in the Senate who could rule the chamber if they wanted to.

But if they just retire, and become lobbyists or whatever else they do (and, by the way, Senator Snowe: please, please, please run on the Americans Elect ticket this fall. Please!), then all they've done is give up the better part of their ability to change the world in ways they want.

Whither Olympia Snowe?

Only 28% of Maine Republicans think that Olympia Snowe should really be a Republican. Accordingly, while her two named primary opponents so far have a combined 30% name recognition, she only gets 43% against their combined 28%, prior to any sort of campaign. All of this makes you think that it would be tricky for Senator Snowe to win the Republican nomination. Maybe she could do it, especially if the Tea Party opposition fails to coalesce around one candidate. But it's unlikely. However, if she runs as an independent, she wouldn't just lead, she'd be getting a majority against a Democrat and a Tea Party Republican. So it looks like if she bolts from the Republican Party and runs as an independent, she'd have a very good chance indeed of winning re-election.

But what would she do? That's what I wonder. If 2013 dawns with Sen. Olympia Snowe (I-ME) sitting in the middle of the Senate, how will she vote? Suppose she were actually the marginal vote determining control of the chamber: would she support the party that kicked her out of a primary? Or the party that's been running candidates against her every six years since she got elected? I think you have the potential for one hell of an interesting dynamic here.