Snowe Job, Prologue

The Snowe Queen has been dethroned, and she is not amused. But as Steve Benen points out, nobody on the Democratic side of the aisle really gives a damn.

In other words, I suspect the key question is no longer, "How do we keep Olympia Snowe happy?" Rather, it's, "How do we convince Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and Mary Landrieu to let the Senate vote on health care reform?"

As for Snowe's argument that the trigger "could have been the road toward achieving a broader bipartisan consensus," I think there's ample evidence to the contrary. For one thing, several leading Democrats -- Pelosi, Rockefeller, et al -- really hate the idea. For another, leading Republicans hate the idea, too. Snowe may have missed it, but just a few weeks ago, Susan Collins, Snowe's moderate Maine colleague, was asked whether she could support a trigger as a compromise. "No," Collins said. "The problem with triggers is that is just delays the public option," and she rejects public-private competition.

Around the same time, the office Republican weekly address told the public, "These so-called healthcare reform bills have different names: a public option, a co-op, a trigger. Make no mistake, these are all gateways to government-run healthcare."

The trigger measure was never the course to "broader bipartisan consensus" -- it was way to possibly get one GOP vote.

And doing the math, gaining one GOP vote while losing several is not the way to get anything passed. Even Harry Reid figured that one out. As I said all along, it's far past time to jettison the Party of No from the proceedings and move on without them. They never were going to vote for any health care reform bill that the Dems and Obama would have been able to take credit for even if the bill included everything the Republicans said they wanted.

They know it's political suicide with the Wingers from a strictly cynical power standpoint, and that's solely how Republicans operate. They abandoned any pretense of going along with it, the Wingers will crucify any Republican in either chamber who does vote for it (ask Dede Scozzafava what the Winger base does to moderates who don't tow the party line on hating minorities, gays, Muslims and environmental science!) and it was never going to happen.

Finally, finally, the Democrats understand that this Republican Party is against anything and everything the Democrats try to do.

So, see ya Snowe Queen.