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Wednesday, February 29, 2012

The Most Significant Thing That Happened Yesterday Politically By Far...

...was wingnut-enabling self-described "moderate" Republican Maine Senator Olympia Snowe's unexpected retirement announcement. If Dems can scramble and find a decent candidate they have a two week window in which to change the very bad, also terrible, math for retaining the Senate into something like the math for regaining the House. Needless to say, apart from cementing in the Affordable Care Act and appointing Supremes who aren't authoritarian whackjobs (neither of which is exactly small potatoes actually) the second Obama term is ashes without a Congress able to partner with the White House to solve actual problems. Since T-Paw abandoned the GOP race I have more or less regarded the White House an Obama lock as much as Presidential politics and the vicissitudes of history permit of such a thing, and my concern has been whether the likely Obama victory would have the coattails to regain the House and retain the Senate. That's still the game as far as I can see. And after many betrayals, at long last, Olympia Snowe has managed to do something for her President that contributes substance to what is in fact the only game in town. I suspect just getting out of the nuthouse of the GOP caucus will be reward enough, but I raise my glass anyway.

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