By Jacqueline Calayag
Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME), who in February announced her retirement, has a campaign chest valued at $3.5 million, and it sounds like her decision on who gets it, will be a matter of choice, and not party politics.
According to the Kennebec Journal, Snowe told campaign donors she plans to put her campaign’s remaining cash on hand ($2.41 million according to FEC filings) toward supporting candidates whose views more closely resemble her own, and to entities that will offer the “sensible center” a “national voice.”
The letter reads, in part: “We've made no final decisions, but I'm giving serious thought to creating both a center to encourage consensus building as well as an entity to help raise the aspirations of young Maine women."
The Senator has been a strong advocate for women’s rights and in March broke with fellow Republican lawmakers to support President Obama’s contraception coverage mandate.
When Snowe announced her retirement in May , she lamented the partisanship that she says has increasingly defined Congress: “I do find it frustrating, however, that an atmosphere of polarization and 'my way or the highway' ideologies has become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions.”
