Last week’s widely reported poll measuring races for the Blaine House and the 1st and 2nd congressional districts sure generated a lot of chatter.

But the latest release from Public Policy Polling will give political junkies plenty to consider.

Chris Potholm, a professor of government at Bowdoin College, said he was one of the 1,468 respondents to the automated poll. Potholm indicated that the poll not only asked about this year’s governor’s and congressional races, but also about the tea party and U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe’s approval rating. 

According to Potholm, the poll asked respondents who they would favor in a match-up between Snowe, whose six-year term expires in 2012, and Chandler Woodcock, the Republican state senator who failed to unseat Gov. John Baldacci in 2006.

“It was like the governor’s race was their excuse to get in your door, and they started asking all these questions about the tea party,” Potholm said. “It really was a strange piece of business.”

Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling confirmed that the poll addressed the potential of a Snowe-Woodcock primary and the tea party.

Jensen’s already on record saying Snowe could be vulnerable to a well-funded tea party candidate.

After Paul LePage surprised local pundits by winning the Republican primary in June, Jensen wrote on the PPP blog, “Simply put, if a well-funded tea party candidate targets Olympia Snowe in the primary in 2012, I think she’ll lose. Her best path to reelection is probably switching to being an independent, ala Jim Jeffords, but going about the party switch in a more principled way than Arlen Specter and Charlie Crist.”

Grumbling from the far right about Snowe’s moderate leanings isn’t new. Ditto U.S. Susan Collins, R-Maine. However, after tea party candidates bumped off mainstream Republicans during the summer’s primaries, the grumbling is rising to a low din.

Election Day will likely determine whether the Republican alliance with tea party candidates is a winning one. If it is, it’ll be interesting to see if the state GOP begins targeting so-called RINOs (Republicans In Name Only), even if it means jeopardizing the moderate vote that has long buoyed Collins and Snowe. 

Moderation tested

File under suggested reading: Last month The New Yorker’s George Packer took an in-depth — and by in-depth we also mean long — look at the apparent dysfunction in the U.S. Senate.

Maine’s Republican senators receive several mentions in Packer’s piece, which examines GOP attempts to block President Obama’s agenda through hard-line opposition.

The result appears to be a double-edged sword for Collins and Snowe. Because Democrats have often sought their support to achieve the 60-vote majority to thwart GOP filibusters, the senators’ D.C. influence has never been higher.

But, according to Packer, that power has resulted in enormous pressure from Republicans.

The report highlights Snowe’s vote on the national health care bill. Some might remember that Snowe originally supported the bill that emerged from the Finance Committee, but later voted against the version that went before the Senate.

Snowe later said the Obama Administration didn’t involve her in negotiations on the final bill. However, an unnamed “friend” of Snowe’s told Packer that the senator was also cornered by Sens. Jon Kyl, the Republican whip from Arizona, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.  

Said the friend: “Kyl and McConnell were saying things like ‘You just can’t let us down, we’re all in this together. You’re a senior Republican member of this caucus, and you just have to hang tough with us. We expect it, and you’re going to do it.’ ”

Read more online. Search “George Packer” and “empty chamber.”

Hey, what’s-your-face

“Dear FirstName,”

That’s how an e-mail from the campaign of U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, was addressed last week. The e-mail was appealing for volunteers.

On the bright side, the boo-boo might prepare recruits for long nights of toiling in anonymity.

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