www.electoral-vote.com

"In a huge blow to Republicans' hopes at capturing the Senate, moderate Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) announced her retirement yesterday, putting this otherwise safe Republican seat in play. Despite the fact that Gov. Paul LePage is a Republican, Maine is fundamentally a very blue state and in an open race, the Democrats have an excellent chance of picking up this seat. In fact, in the wink of an eye, it suddenly became the Democrats' best shot at a pickup, overriding even Massachusetts, where Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) is locked in a titanic battle with consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren.

Since this news came completely out of the blue (basically, Snowe, who is extremely wealthy, said the Senate is so dysfunctional that she doesn't want to be part of it any more), nobody has announced his or her candidacy yet. Nevertheless, Maine's two representatives, Chellie Pingree and Michael Michaud, both Democrats, are surely thinking hard about it. Pingree is probably the more ambitious of the two and is likely to make the run. She comes from a political family, with her daughter, Hannah, having served as speaker of the Maine house of representatives until forced out by term limits".

http://pingree.house.gov/


http://pingree.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=27&Itemid=18
"After being term-limited from the Maine Senate in 2000, Pingree challenged incumbent U.S. Senator Susan Collins in 2002. As one of the few outspoken opponents of the Iraq War running for U.S. Senate, Chellie mounted a strong, but ultimately unsuccessful campaign.

"From 2003 to 2007, Chellie served as the National President and CEO of Common Cause, a non-partisan citizen activist group with nearly 300,000 members and 35 state chapters. Common Cause's mission is to help citizens make their voices heard in the political process and to hold their elected leaders accountable to the public interest. Under Chellie's leadership, Common Cause increased its membership and diversified its agenda to include limiting media concentration and consolidation, promoting Net Neutrality, and election reform, while continuing to pursue its traditional goals of campaign finance reform and oversight of government ethics and accountability.

"In 2008 Chellie was elected to Congress from Maine’s 1st Congressional District—the first woman elected to Congress from that District. It also marks the first time in American history that women make up the majority of a state’s Congressional Delegation."

Where was her drive for so-called "common purpose" when she decided to join her fellow Republicans in their rampant obstructionism over anything and everything in the Senate since 2009 (excluding her vote for the Stimulus)?

nm

brutal indeed for the party of hypocrites!

The center she's occupied has disappeared, like an island nation swallowed by global warming. She can't win the primary unless she drifts so far to the right that Maine's sizeable Left will abandon her. That's basically the coded message in her speech; she is telling her party's leaders that they have squeezed her out.

and, in fact, hasn't been able to do so for a while. That's why there is the list of her increasingly right-leaning actions (at least that's my guess). As you say, essentially, she'd have to continue on that track to win her party over for the election but will have lost any support from the left she maybe could count on before.

And I also suspect, there may be something to the view that she's just too turned off by the dysfunctional mess the R's have made it and she wants no more part in it.

I guess we'll just have to wait for the tell all book.

Julie

ala Arlen Spector.

...after I've thought this through. I have 2 thoughts initially. One is that something scared her out of this race. My guess is that it was something in her own party. As much as I hate to say it, if she got past her primary, she'd have won in Noember.

My other thought is that she is doing what arlen specter did in PA 2 years ago, which is giving her home of the teabaggers party a great big middle finger with the likelyhood that the Democratic primary will be tantamount to election.

Offhand, I suspect that Mike Michaud may be more interested in being Governor than in this race. I do, however, have no evidence to back that up.

PEACE!

Democrats still have way too many seats to defend in comparison to Republicans. That makes one seat not as important in the grand scheme of things. That said, the sorry state of the Republican Presidential Primary race certainly is helping improve Democratic prospects for holding onto the Senate and making gains in the House.

So there are two Senate seats in a matter of days that suddenly look more favorable for the Democrats.