MAINE SHOCKER: Senator-for-life Snowe's(R) lead down to SIX POINTS!

[NorthernSpy]

Mind you, very little of the vote has been counted yet -- under ten percent.

Thing is, it's those little rural towns that generally report first, and they tend to be more Republican than the larger towns.

But even so, if you know anything about Maine politics and the generally high regard for Snowe, even just this little preliminary result is a SHOCKER!

:wow:


It was just reported on channel 2(4), the NBC affiliate:

Snowe R 48%
Jean Hay-Bright D 42%
Slavick (independent anti-war protest candidate, damn his spoiler ass) 10%

[qnr]

1. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, I know many who voted straight Democrat n/t

[NorthernSpy]

5. I did, and I know others who did...

I just hope that not too many people threw their vote away on LaMarche et al. If only the Greenies would get a friggin clue!

[stop the bleeding]

2. is there some kind of link for Maine - this seems important

shocker is putting it mildly

[NorthernSpy]

6. sorry, no link available yet

It was on the broadcast, but hasn't made it to WLBZ' site.

Totally blew me away, so of course I had to share it. Even keeping in mind that these are just the earliest returns, I STILL couldn't quite believe what I was hearing and seeing.

[ShaneGR]

3. The closeness proves a point.... but its over in that race...

6% is 6%. Anyways, she's fairly liberal on a lot of issues. Definitely someone the Dem leadership can work with on a lot of bills.

[NorthernSpy]

9. I agree -- it's an early result, and I doubt Snowe's really in trouble...

She's not a bad person -- no one seems to think that. And she certainly can be worked with, unlike those fruitcake ideologues that make up so much of the Republican Party in other states.

[TwoHandedLayup]

4. 61-26 now

sounds like she is in place. At least she is a moderate republican that can work both sides of the aisle.

[NorthernSpy]

7. oh, we can expect a lot of that -- early returns, you know...

The numbers can fluctuate wildly early on. That's because in Maine, you are dealing with incredibly tiny numbers of votes until the big towns start reporting. So you can get some really weird early numbers when it's just the 50 voters in East Geezerville that we have results for.

Yeah, I expect Snowe to win in the end. But if the race is closer than she'd expected, perhaps she'll have some things to think about.

[high density]

8. huh?

I think Snowe's going to take two-thirds of the vote, easily.

[NorthernSpy]

10. no one knows what the margin will be in the end

Still, even for an early result, it was kind of astonishing news... Especially considering that no one seems to remember seeing a single Hay-Bright tv ad during the entire campaign (and that "I'm an independent voice in Washington and don't forget I saved the shipyard!" ad of Snowe's was on every time you turned around).

:wow: