Olympia Snowe is losing momentum
Maine vote is 21 percent in Parade Magazine online poll
April 30, 2006
In our last Campaign Update, we told you about the April 14, 2006, Portland Press Herald on-line reader poll asking "Who is your choice for U.S. Senate," in which I drew 30 percent to Olympia Snowe's 56 percent, out of 1,100 "votes" cast. We pointed out that those were remarkable numbers, considering it was two months before the contested Democratic primary, that Olympia Snowe is supposed to be the most popular Senator in the country, and that my campaign has been working with about 1 percent of Olympia Snowe's campaign assets. We declared that "We've Got Momentum!"

A second indication that Snowe's popularity is waning showed up in Thursday's Bangor Daily News, with a report about a Parade Magazine/White House Project online survey of eight possible women candidates for president in 2008. Both of Maine's Senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, were among the eight women -- and only eight women -- on that list. That online survey, in which 400 Mainers "voted," Collins received 48 percent of the Maine vote, while Snowe got a mere 21 percent from her constituents.

It is not surprising that 69 percent of Maine "voters" would pick a Maine Senator in this poll. What is interesting is that Snowe, in her home state, drew only two votes for every five for Collins. Sen. Hillary Clinton was not far behind Snowe in Maine, pulling 17 percent of the "votes." (Nationally, with more than 14,000 people "voting," Maine's two senators were at the bottom, with Snowe at 3 percent and Collins at 4 percent.)

Nowhere in the BDN article, or in the Parade Magazine article in today's (April 30) Maine Sunday Telegram, do they tell you just how these eight women, four Democrats and four Republicans, came to be on this exclusive list. Maine's two Senators joined Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the Republican side. Democrats were Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius, Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, and Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.

Notice the list includes three Republican Senators, but only one Democratic Senator. You would think that a list like that would have balanced two women Republican Senators from one state on the East Coast with the two Democratic Senators from one state on the West Coast -- namely Sen. Barbara Boxer and Sen. Diane Feinstein of California. Sen. Clinton, of course, has outstanding name recognition, but the other Democrats named to this list are not national figures. (If you were asked to name the governors of Kansas and Arizona, and the mayor of Atlanta, could you do it?)

So despite this list being skewed in favor of Republicans with broad name recognition, nationally Snowe still came in behind all those Democrats and all the other Republicans -- dead last.

Interesting, isn't it?