Is Maine Republican Senator Olympia Snowe completely safe in 2012?

By Richard K. Barry 

There is no doubt that Olympia Snowe, Republican senator from Maine, has typically rankled the hard right by being generally less ideologically rigid than they require. First she supported George W. Bush's TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) bill and then President Obama's stimulus package not to mention voting in favor of Obama's health care reform bill at the committee level.

As of late April she has attracted two GOP challengers to her right -- Maine Tea Party Patriots head Andrew Ian Dodge and businessman Scott D'Ambroise -- but according to local press neither seems particularly strong.

This doesn't mean that the right challenger coming along at the right time with significant resources couldn't give her trouble. As Mark Brewer, University of Maine political scientist, said recently, "I do think there is a possibility that if there were someone -- a good candidate from the right of her -- in the Republican primary, they could possibly give her some problems, but at this point I just can't seem to come up with much in the way of names."

It's not that she hasn't made some powerful enemies. Recently, Club for Growth President Chris Chocola lumped her in with Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah saying that he didn't rule out getting involved in primary contests against Hatch and Snowe and that they are "on his radar."

The Club for Growth has made a mission of taking on establishment Republicans who they don't feel support the Club's "pro-growth" ideals such as "limited government, low taxes and economic freedom."

And the national group the Tea Party Express has sent out a press release saying that Snowe will be one of their top targets in 2012. These folks have money and they have had some success.

But it may be one of those cases where Tea Party and radical fiscal conservative anger is more potent outside the state than in. It's interesting to note that the new governor of Maine, Tea Party favorite Paul LePage, has said he is backing Snowe.

Still, it has been noted that Snowe, generally a more pragmatic Republican, has been getting her right-wing bona fides in order more recently.

In Maine, the Morning Sentinel has pointed out that in meetings with Tea Party activists she has been expressing strong opposition to the Affordable Care Act and has pledged her support to make sure that Sharia law doesn't infiltrate American Courts (which I doubt is a huge problem in Maine). As well, she has been voting more conservatively as of late to the point of changing her positions on the DREAM Act and the Bush-era tax cuts.

As another sign that she is preparing for battle, she recently released fundraising numbers to show that she has over $2 million in cash on hand.

In 2006 Olympia Snowe beat her Democratic challenger by a margin of 74% to 21%. Despite this, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Chair Patty Murray has identified Maine as a possible Democratic pickup in 2012. Seems unlikely and more likely that Snowe's headaches will come from her right flank if at all. It also seems clear that national right-wing forces would like to make trouble for her. It's less clear that they will be able to do so. But Snowe is not taking any chances, and that, all by itself, should tell us something.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)