As the U.S. Senate veers right, Maine’s Olympia Snowe says she still prefers the middle of the road.

Republican senators boosted their Senate majority from 51 seats to 55 on Nov. 2, pushing moderates like Snowe into an even smaller corner of the party.

But just because conservatives now dominate the Senate doesn’t mean all Republicans need to shift to the political right, she says, nor does it mean moderates’ power has diminished.

Maine’s senior senator represents what she calls the “traditional wing” of the GOP: conservative on fiscal matters, moderate on social issues. That has never changed, she said.

“I grew up in my party,” she said during a recent interview with the Sun Journal. “That party may have changed. That doesn’t mean that as a moderate Republican I shouldn’t play an equally valuable role in this party.”

Vermont used to be the most Republican state in the country. The South now holds that distinction, catapulting those conservative views on social issues to the fore, she noted.

“That’s fine,” she said. “We have to accept that as moderates we now have a more conservative base in our party.”

But that does not mean her swing vote will be less important in the upcoming congressional session, she said.

In fact, she predicts just the opposite will be true.

In order to advance their agenda, President Bush and the Republican leaders in the Senate need 60 votes to overcome any Democratic filibusters on major legislative initiatives. To do that, they will need to galvanize support of moderate Republicans like Snowe as well as centrist Democrats, she said. That will give her ilk even more clout than before, she said.

Amy Fried, a professor of political science at the University of Maine, said Snowe is probably right.

There are fewer moderate Democrats in the Senate now, having been replaced by Republicans, Fried said. So, although there may be more Republicans, the political center of the entire Senate likely has not shifted much, she said.

The abortion question

Although social issues have crept to the forefront of the Republican Party’s platform – gay marriage leading them all – Snowe said she will continue to press leadership on issues she believes most important.

Just this week, Snowe called for a meeting of Senate centrists, a group she co-chairs, to map their agenda for the 109th Congress and to strategize implementation. (See related story.)

Key among the issues for Snowe is a balanced-budget amendment, which she would like to see added to the Constitution.

Snowe said she’s troubled by the growing federal deficit and, for that reason, has not supported Bush on the size and depth of every proposed tax cut.

Another issue of likely contention is abortion. During his second term, President Bush is expected to have several vacancies to fill on the Supreme Court, possibly as many as three of the nine seats.

If he nominates a jurist who is likely to vote to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion, Snowe said she would vote against confirmation.

“Obviously, if I have to, I would,” she said. “If it does have implications for Roe v. Wade, I will certainly be concerned,” she said, having always supported abortion rights.

But she hopes – and expects – it will not come to that.

It would be divisive and therefore wrong for Bush to appoint a litmus-test nominee whose judicial record suggests an inclination to overturn Roe v. Wade, she said. Instead, he should pick someone considered centrist, she said.

“I hope we don’t engage in that process,” she said.

That process has started with conservatives and anti-abortion groups opposing Sen. Arlen Specter’s possible chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees confirmation of Supreme Court nominees. Specter, a centrist from Pennsylvania, is the ranking Republican on that committee.

Snowe supports his appointment. The opposition is based on a statement Specter made recently suggesting an anti-abortion Supreme Court nominee would never win Senate confirmation.

Clubbed by conservatives

Whether Snowe’s determination to remain a moderate will inspire some in the party to work against her remains to be seen. Snowe’s vote against Bush’s 2003 tax cuts sparked protests from some conservative groups, notably the tax-hating Club for Growth. That well-financed organization unleashed television ads last year aimed at Snowe, suggesting her opposition was un-American.

Snowe says she’s planning to seek a third Senate term in 2006. But she doesn’t expect a primary fight from the right.

Why not? First, she points to Sen. John Kerry’s recent decisive win in her home state, along with big wins for both of Maine’s Democratic congressmen this month.

Second, she says she’s been given assurances from conservative groups, including the Club for Growth, that they won’t oppose her candidacy.

In April, Specter fended off a primary challenger backed with more than $2 million from the Club for Growth. Following Specter’s win, Stephen Moore, the club’s president, told a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter that Snowe “may be as good as we are going to get in Maine,” despite her being “a little more of a troublemaker than (Maine Sen. Susan) Collins.”

“I think people pretty much understand that this is a diverse state and you need more centrist-based Republicans to win,” Snowe said.

However, David Keating, the club’s executive director, said this week that his group has not ruled out bankrolling a primary fight against her especially if a Republican candidate emerges with a strong record of tax cutting.

Among Senate Republicans, Keating said Snowe’s voting record on economic growth issues is “near the bottom.” He claimed that Snowe has demonstrated a willingness to vote for new spending despite her pledge of fiscal conservatism,

Snowe counters that her occasional votes on programs critical to Americans, such as the Medicare prescription drug benefit, does not contradict her fundamental fiscal conservatism.

Snowe press secretary Antonia Ferrier said Snowe believes the best way to secure a path of economic expansion is to “confront our deficits and our national debt, not by deferring it to our children. This is the most fundamental and logical pro-growth’ policy – one that Mainers and Americans alike understand and expect.”

Red, white and blue

She said she’s concerned about the deep-seated division between Republican and Democratic states, as reflected in the presidential electoral map.

The solid blocks of red and blue states signal a “very troubling trend,” Snowe said. She blames them, in part, on efforts by the two parties to draw political lines that create less-diverse congressional districts. That leads to fewer moderate lawmakers.

While she expects Bush to set an agenda important to his political base, she said she hopes those issues will not further divide the country by separating Congress into ideological camps.

Congressional leaders and Bush have “a greater obligation to do everything we can to unite the country,” she said.

Paraphrasing from a newly elected senator from Illinois who gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, Snowe said: “I don’t think it’s healthy for America to be divided into red and blue. I say, Can’t we live under the red white and blue for all Americans?'”