"Snowe is one of the few remaining moderate Republicans, a group that once dominated the Northeast and vied for control of the national Republicans under leaders such as Nelson Rockefeller. She was instrumental in forcing President George W. Bush to limit the size of his 2001 tax cut. She was one of three Senate Republicans who backed President Barack Obama's 2009 stimulus plan. But Snowe found it increasingly difficult to reach across party lines that kept moving further apart."