Watching Olympia Snowe the last couple years is like watching a really bad horror film. I've been warning for nearly a year of the progressively more dire threat of a right-wing primary challenger, and the increasingly obvious reality that her best chance of survival lies in escaping the Republican Party. By this point, there's loud, ominous music and blood running down the walls and yet the oblivious woman is sitting there showering and you're screaming get out of the house now!:
Yesterday we showed that Olympia Snowe would have a very difficult time winning the Republican nomination for another term in the Senate from Maine. Our general election numbers in the state show that there is one easy way she could return to the body in 2013 though- running as an independent. In four match ups we tested that included Snowe as an independent along with a Democrat (we looked at Rosa Scarcelli and Emily Cain) and a Republican (we looked at Scott D'Amboise and Andrew Ian Dodge) she gets anywhere from 54-57% of the vote, finishing in first place with Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike.
That's PPP's analysis. It's noteworthy that PPP is a Democratic firm, and it notes -- correctly -- that if Snowe loses her primary, which she very likely would, the Democrats would have a prime pickup opportunity. I have no problem with that. I just don't understand what Snowe is thinking here.