"It's not healthy for the country to have parties with polar opposite views without that bridge that you need to build consensus."

“Ultimately, we're heading to having the smallest political tent in history, the way events have been unfolding. If the Republican Party fully intends to become a majority party in the future, it must move from the far right back toward the middle.”

“We are not working out issues anymore. We are working on a parallel universe, with competing proposals, up or down votes.”

“U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe video clips from the Senate Republican Conference.”

“U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe - official U.S. Senate website”

“I understand that the hyper-partisanship in Washington makes people feel alienated. They're frustrated and they're angry, and they should be, but they can do something about it. We've got to turn it around. I'm concerned it's going to become institutionalized. … Make candidates accountable for making government work. That should be a debate question: What are you going to do to make government work? You can't sit on your hands and say, "No, I want it 100% my way." I don't know how this evolved, but I find it irrational — you don't demand that in any other sphere of life. The country is now in a virtual standstill. We can't begin to measure the reverberation of all this legislative neglect five, six, or whatever years into the future.”

“The Anguished Moderate," The Washington Post, July 15, 2007”