Person of Interest

Obama Woos Olympia Snowe

Key Republican could be all he needs.

President Barack Obama and his team have been relentlessly courting the favor of moderate Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, and it looks like their work is paying off. “He’s always eliciting my views,” she told The New York Times, “wondering, you know, what my concerns are.” Snowe, like every Republican in Congress, has not endorsed either health-care bill in the Senate, but signaled in the interview that she might be willing to do so, calling the bill "budget neutral" and repudiating conservative claims that Obama is supporting big government. “I’ve gotten an impression that he would, you know, probably do less than more,” she said. It's still unclear if Snowe would defy her party and provide Democrats with the 60th vote they need to block a filibuster. "I’m going to support the right policy,” she said. “People really want to get something done.”