"New England moderate cover"--Regional Impact of "Fratboy v. Pill"

Before she suddenly swerved into Calvinism, the Rev. Dr. Cuteless observed sagely that "One good theory is that it [_sc._, the marketin’ of S. Philip Fratboy as

Fearless Champion of Private Judgment] will bring in national donations. He’s hoping to blunt (sorry) the impact on independents by telling a simple story about conscience exemptions being perfectly reasonable for everyone."

That sounds pretty plausible to Paddy [1], but at the same time amateur backoods political analysis need not leap directly from our own little parish to the _Heimatland G*ttes_ as a whole. There is also an intermediate level, a certain New Iceland or Down-East-of-Worcester angle to this fuss that includes a point one feels a little embarrassed not to have thought of independently:

And now, behold what the overreach has wrought. First, it helped lead to the likely loss of a GOP Senate seat. Olympia Snowe told the _New York Times_ that a final straw leading to her decision to retire was the Blunt-Rubio amendment—which would do exactly what the Church demands, prohibiting pretty much any health coverage mandates for any employer who registered an objection on conscience grounds. Snowe was under huge pressure to support it, partly to give New England-moderate cover to Scott Brown, who has come out for the amendment and is already under withering attack for that from Elizabeth Warren.

That is from Comrade A. X. MacGillis [2] over to The New Republicanine. As he mentions, the New York Times Company caused a hired hand to write, 29 February 2012,

The looming Senate vote on a Republican plan to give employers the right to withdraw health care coverage based on religious and moral convictions put Senator Olympia J. Snowe in a tough but familiar position: weighing her own views as a Republican centrist against pressure from fellow Republicans to support the party position.

A longtime advocate of increasing access to health care and one of a dwindling number of Republican backers of abortion rights, Ms. Snowe believed that the language was too broad and could have unintended consequences. At the same time, an embattled Republican colleague, Senator Scott P. Brown of Massachusetts, had publicly backed it, and a “no” vote from Ms. Snowe, of Maine, could isolate him as he sought to fend off anger in his heavily Democratic state.

(( ... Hmmm. So, ¿Where’s the "huge pressure"? ... ))

Mike Castle, a former moderate Republican House member from Delaware and a friend of Ms. Snowe and her husband, expressed a similar view. “All of a sudden we’re talking about abortion. We’re talking about contraception. We’re talking about social issues that were not that big a deal,” said Mr. Castle, who lost his 2010 Senate bid to a Tea Party insurgency during the primary.

“Senator Snowe wants to focus on bringing down the deficit and getting the economy on track, and that’s where the priorities should be,” said Gov. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, another moderate who served with Ms. Snowe in the Senate before leaving the Republican Party. (( &c. &c. ))

A bit of a disappointment, hugepressurewise, for one hoping to hear an improbable, but fun, account of the Freiherr von McConnell pullin’ out his Glock to try to get the little lady back in line.

Be that as it may, Paddy gets the impression that America’s Otherparty may indeed look forwards "to the likely loss of a GOP Senate seat" in ME. Plus another in MA, assuming the H*rv*rds and the Eleventh International types can manage not to

But no, let’s save that vain tirade for later on, ¿shall we?

Happy days.
--JHM

____
[1] Mais que sçay-je?

(( Paddy is suffering from "troll envy" after notiicing how Dr. Cuteless was nominated for, perhaps actually proclaimed as, winner of the Most-Absurd-Comment-Ever Sweepstakes: "This competition was very inadequately announced in advance," he pouted. "Why, ¡even the MBTA flak-catching sessions have been better publicized!" ))

___
[2] Just the sound of such a surname is lovely in the ear, of course, but Paddy wishes he were a little more sure who the bearer is, exactly. ’Tis but a guess, really, that

MacGillis, Alec

Alec MacGillis is a writer for the Baltimore Sun. His poetry has appeared in the _Berkshire Review_. He is a native of Pittsfield, Massachusetts and a 1996 graduate of Yale. (2004)

is pertinent. Paddy certainly hopes that’s a ¡bingo!, for Mass. Exceptionalist trivia is the new hobbyhorse out here at Shanty Hills.