Word: gop
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...This is not the first time Collins and Snowe have broken ranks with their party. They have often found themselves at odds with the GOP leadership on taxes, budgets, the environment and social issues. They have both voted for stem-cell research, against a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, for giving illegal immigrants a path to citizenship and against a ban on partial-birth abortion. They also both voted to acquit Bill Clinton after he was impeached...
...what makes Snowe and Collins more powerful now is that they, along with Specter, are nearly the last survivors of a once common species of moderate Northeastern Republican. As the GOP's center of gravity moves to the right, the Democratic majority has fewer and fewer potential crossovers to choose from. That gives each woman enormous leverage in a Senate Republican caucus whose leaders cannot afford any defections if they are to sustain a filibuster. Both sides know that the math on any close vote is likely to come down to Snowe and Collins...
...this Down East independence does not exactly thrill their colleagues on the GOP side of the Senate chamber. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham noted that Collins' negotiating skills helped turn an $819 billion House bill into an $838 billion version in the Senate. "I like them both," he told the New York Times, "but I wouldn't want them...
...bill is expected to draw at least a few GOP votes in the House, reflecting just how far to the center the measure has moved in passing the Senate. The final cost, $789 billion, is well below the $800 billion ceiling that the three Republicans and a group of 15 centrist Senate Democrats had demanded in exchange for their support. Even so, House Republicans complained bitterly about being left out of the process. "Some have said that we don't want to see anything done. Nothing could be further from the truth," said Representative Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House...
...Republicans voted for the House bill, and the meager GOP support in the Senate - just those three votes - prompted Republican complaints that the Dems were not living up to Obama's campaign promise of bipartisanship. But in voting en masse against the bill, the GOP is making a risky long-term bet, said Clyde Wilcox, a political science professor at Georgetown University. "The GOP is gambling here that the stimulus does not work, and they can make big gains in 2010. Given the sticky economy, that is certainly a possibility," Wilcox said. "But all it took for Ronald Reagan...