The Real Real Reason for Olympia Snowe's Departure

Contrary to her own assertions, and the feminist readings of Daily Beast Columnist Eleanor Clift, Olympia Snowe is leaving because she is uncompetitive to the country and uncommitted to constitutional governance.

In her press release explaining why she has chosen not to run for reelection in 2012, Snowe blasts the "dysfunction and political polarization in the institution". Convinced that the Senate "is not living up to what the Founding Fathers envisioned", Senator Snowe ought to reread James Madison's Federalist articles, including the celebrated #10. In this piece to the citizens of New York, Madison articulated that the frustrating and forced deliberation in Congress would protect majority and minority interests from the ever-present and near-omnipotent threat of faction and fanaticism. What Snowe decries as empty partisanship, Madison would applaud as the expected manifestation of many interests checking and thwarting one another.

Indeed, Snowe does recognize the philosophical input of the "Father of the Constitution" in citing:

"During the Federal Convention of 1787, James Madison wrote in his Notes of Debates that "the use of the Senate is to consist in its proceedings with more coolness, with more system, and with more wisdom, than the popular branch."

However, Snowe has neglected our limited constitutional history, in which the Seventeenth Amendment reverted the election of Senators from the diverse yet more stable interests of the state legislatures, and placed the election of the more august branch in the hearts, minds, and ballots of the same popular passions that elect the members of the House of Representatives. Yet even then, the growing power of faction has still channeled the diverse and divergent interests of the several Senators to check and prevent necessary change in fiscal restraint and limited government. This development, however is not a fault of the institution, but a representative projection of the divided mind of the American voter, those who want their cake from Washington but want someone else to cut and pay for it. Such outrageous fantasy is acceptable, even humorous in children's fables, but in constitutional government, this division brings forth the inevitable disintegration of government efficacy, and intended effect which Madison, Hamilton, and Jay expanded and expounded upon in their political tracts to the wary voters of New York.

Ms. Snowe's ignorance concerning the role of government, the source of political friction, and ultimately her distaste for the welcome sclerotization of the legislative process, all herald a welcome sigh of relief from Tea Party affiliates, dedicated moderates, and middle class voters fed up with little compromised which have comprised the greatest allotment to government growth and spending over the last forty years.