Traitor Republicans

When I first heard from a friend that three Republicans had broken from their colleagues and lined up with Barack Obama on the stimulas package, I quickly named them. Their past is much of the same. NewsMax.com wrote:

Three liberal Republican senators — Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Pennsylvania's Sen. Arlen Specter — who pledged their support this weekend to President Barack Obama’s massive stimulus bill are drawing the wrath of many conservatives.

As news filtered through the media that a "deal" had been cut with the defecting GOP Senators — giving Democrats the 60-plus votes they need to overcome a Republican filibuster — Republican officials and pundits expressed outrage.

The bolting senators cited soaring unemployment numbers, the country's worsening recession and the fact they cut about $100 billion off of the Senate Democrats' proposed plan as key factors for their decision to betray the GOP Senate caucus to join with the Democrats.

But critics note that the Democratic "compromise" plan comes in at $827 billion — $8 billion more in spending than the already bloated House bill that called for $819 billion in new spending. They also note the so-called stimulus bill offers little immediate relief to the economy. According to a Congressional Budget Office report issued last week, only a fraction of the stimulus will be spent in 2009.

Though weekends are noted for slow news cycles, Collins, Snowe, and Specter already are finding they are under hostile fire, lambasted on conservative Web sites throughout the weekend and the subjects of angry calls by many of their constituents, according to reports.

“Arlen Specter is DONE,” wrote a blogger named steelfish on the FreeRepublic Web site. “He won his last primary by less than 1 percent against a real conservative of Pat Toomey. And only because the President Bush came to PA and campaigned for him. He is DONE.”

Specter is up for re-election in 2010. Washington Republican strategists tell Newsmax this weekend that Specter's defection has sealed the deal: he will face a primary for the GOP nomination.

"We don't care if we lose the Pennsylvania Senate seat to the Democrats," one Washington strategist told Newsmax. "Better to remove Fifth columnists from the party."

The sentiment was echoed in chat rooms and blogs across the web.

“They are frauds. RINOS" Republicans in Name Only, wrote a blogger named Croupier101 on the Fox News blog site.

Conservatives are fed up. Here is contact information for these three traitors:

Olympia Snowe - Maine
(202) 224-5344

Susan Collins - Maine
(202) 224-2523

Arlen Specter - Pennsylvania
(202) 224-4254

Tonight I see where Leslie Carbone is also upset and writes:

If two of these three traitors had voted against cloture, the bill would not be moving forward.

A final vote is expected tomorrow. Please contact your Senators and urge them to vote against this government stimulus bill. If you live in Virginia, your Senators are:

Jim Webb
(202) 224-4024

and

Mark Warner
(202) 224-2023

This has got to stop.