United States Senator Olympia Snowe is the last of a dying breed of moderate-liberal Republicans . Claiming to despise the "dysfunction and political polarization in the institution," Snowe believes that the upper Congressional house "is not living up to what the Founding Fathers envisioned."
In reality, her wavering stance on conservative issues was costing her prestige in the national caucus and in her home state, where a Tea Party stalwart made off with the governorship by a small margin out of a field of five major candidates. Snowe's cool camaraderie has done nothing to stop the surging of spending and self-defeating deficits which have dragged our country into the worst fiscal crises of its relatively short history. The departure of this semi-reliable vote in the Senate idf problematic for the party, but also emblematic of a nation which has repudiated the bipartisanship of pork-barrel spending, denial of entitlemebt banktruptcy, and business-as-usual legislating which spends taxdollars without end.
Rather than cutting spending outright, Snowe and her immodest moderate ilk (i.e. former Senator Arlen Spector and Maine colleague Susan Collins) just nibbled off the top of exorbitant spending. When it came to Big Government, moderates like Snowe were less immoderate, though not quite as spendthrift as the Democrats whom they joined on many occasions. Snowe supported TARP, convinced that the rapid injection of capital was necessary to foretall another Great Depression, a hysterical notion which only perpetuated the Great Recession for four years, and at taxpayers expense. Her vote for the 2009 stimulus helped push this country further into the red without fostering job growth. These immoderate forays into the finance sector displayed crude political calculation, not caring for the welfare of the country.
The voluntary dismissal of immoderately "moderate" legislators like Snowe is not one a loss that the country should mourn. Centrists such as she were in fact mere opportunists looking for any way to broker individual power by moving a little to the right or to the left of the majority party, thus playing off of a crucial tie-breaker advantage.
Congressman David Dreier of California is more commendable, or just as blameworty, depending on whether one favors party or country.
For those who stand by the GOP standards, whether candidates uphold the same or not, Congressman Dreier wielded considerable power in the House of Representatives.
A self-described "little l" libertarian, outgoing Congressman David Dreier ruled the Ways and Means Committee from 1999 until this term. During the heady, spendthrift days of George W. Bush, when the United States government burned through hard-earned surpluses and created deficits and a nationl debt to rival the profligate spending of the previous Democratic administration, David Dreier signed off on pork-laden transportation bills
Despite the vain and vapid attempt to lump Dreier and Snowe in the same catergory, no one can ignore that Dreier is stepping down because he cannot compete effectively in the newly-drawn Southern California Congressional Districts, which have diluted the Republican majority which carried him for thirty years. Moreover, unlike his counterpart in the Senate, Dreier demonstrated a consistent attachment by vote and by rote to the GOP party platform, especially fiscal conservatism and solvency, a consistent characteristic conspicuously absent from Snowe's claim record of accomplishments. Dreier Supporting reforms for Social Security, yet unwilling to support the Federal Defense of Marriage Amendment, citing that family matters should be resolved by the states.
Olympia Snowe was a meadering moderate. Dreier demonstrated a lean and mean libertarian legacy, one which no one should despise. His candor and consistency in the House of Representatives will be missed, and his attention to fiscal conservatism above all else may signal the soul searching which many California GOP operatives must consider if they wish to remain viable in the Golden State.
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