Hotline After Dark -- "Come in," She Said, "I'll Give Ya Shelter From the Snowe-Storm"

"World News" led with the health care bill passing the Sen. Finance Cmte and featured Sen. Olympia Snowe and Afghan Pres. Hamid Karzai. "Evening News" and "Nightly News" led with the health care bill passing the Sen. Finance Cmte.

Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) appeared on "World News," 10/13 p.m.

Snowe, on whether one supportive GOPer means bipartisanship: "Well, obviously not sufficient. We need to have more, we need to have support of the Democratic centrists, for example, who also can play a very pivotal role in this regard. .... If we can work continuously together looking at the issues having an honest discussion about the issues and what works what doesn't work, that's what it's going to take."

More Snowe: "For so long, the art of legislating has been lost here in Congress and it's all about just moving it along on the fast track, and unfortunately, the big issues have been set aside."

Snowe, on what would cause her to "pull back": "That would mean significant costs are added to the bill or significant taxes. If some issues aren't addressed such as affordability, we still have to work on that issue making sure Americans have affordable health plans. They do under this legislation, but we need to do more and to be certain of that."

After the jump, more Snowe, reactions to the Sen. Finance Cmte vote and the fixation with ME's sr. senator.

(ABBY LIVINGSTON)

More Snowe: "And finally, of course, the public option. That is not an area that I have agreed to. I don't want government at the outset of the process. It really could shut off the private sector. The private sector can do a lot because of the market reforms that we included in this legislation that will compel them to live up to a standard."

Snowe, on whether "we're closer to health care reform" than 24 hours ago: "Oh, absolutely. It's at least demonstrating the art of the possible, if everybody's willing to pull together and to work through the issues and not drive it through arbitrary timelines, which I've said initially as well when we began this process" (ABC, 10/13).

SNOWE BLIZZARD OF REACTION

Pundits and pols reacted 10/13 p.m. to the Sen. Finance Cmte vote on health care.

WH CoS Rahm Emanuel, on Obama's reaction to the Snowe vote: "He was pleased by all the members. He's called them all today on the Finance Committee, in the sense of those Democrats who voted yes, as well as Olympia Snowe, to thank them for their hard work, and urged them on to keeping that momentum, that energy to going forward and working immediately in merging the two bills out of the Senate, so that it will be ready to go to the floor" ("NewsHour," PBS, 10/13).

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), on the cmte vote: "I expected them to pass it out of committee. That's step number one. And I commend Max Baucus and Senator Conrad for the work that they've done. I don't agree with it. I think it's going to cost an arm and a leg" ("Hardball," MSNBC, 10/13).

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), on whether he'd vote for the Sen. Finance bill: "No. It's a pretty weak bill, and we're going to have to make it a lot stronger" ("Situation Room," CNN, 10/13).

CNN's Crowley: "It is true that progressives are going to be much more aggressive now. They're going to look and say, 'Oh, we don't need Republicans.' But they knew that from the beginning, because the problem here isn't Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins. ... And I think they will pick up Republicans. The problem is the conservative Democrats" ("Campbell Brown," CNN, 10/13).

SNOWE-BOUND WITH FACINATION

Many weighed in on the woman at the center of the debate, Snowe, 10/13 p.m.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), on if he predicted Snowe's vote: "I just didn't know. And I keep in touch with her quite regularly. She is very meticulous. She is very thoughtful. And I think she probably made up her mind here just at the last minute. But let me make it very clear. I think you heard her say this. that she is not committed to this all the way through, unless it stays pretty much like it is, from this standpoint, because you know this is just the start"("Your World," FNC, 10/13).

Ex-Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), on Snowe saying her 10/13 vote "doesn't forecast" what her vote "will be tomorrow": "You got to love Olympia. I served with Olympia on the Finance Committee for four years, and I've heard those words before. Olympia is enigmatic. She's someone who you just have to sit back and wonder where she's going to go, and sometimes, she's surprise you. Sometimes, she'll stick to her guns and insist on certain things being in the legislation" ("On the Record," FNC, 10/13).

Ex-WH press sec. Ari Fleischer, on whether the GOP will punish Snowe: "No. I think we have seen that people have independent judgments and they exercise them" ("AC 360," CNN, 10/13).

Portland Press Herald's Nemitz, who has followed Snowe's career for three decades, on the pressure Snowe is under from Dems, GOPers and the WH: "She tends, at times like this, to shield herself from all that by becoming completely immersed in the data, the reports."

More Nemitz: "Of course, [this] is to inform herself, and to probably be one of the better informed senators at the table when these things come to committee vote. And also, to give her some kind of respite or shelter, if you will, from a lot of the political winds that are flying around her."

Nemitz, on how Snowe has surprised him with the vote: "I'm not sure if it surprised me, but what impressed me was how, despite all the pressure, despite all the attention, despite taking the back stairway up and down to the Senate chamber to avoid the media, she never stopped smiling. And I would think at a time like this, one might expect a scowl from time to time, but she has this, I don't know if you call it, I don't know, serenity or something about her that enables her to kind of glide through all this. And despite the fact that she's at the center of this storm, she, at times, really seems to be the least affected by it" ("Rachel Maddow Show," MSNBC, 10/13).