This winter has been harsh on us all, so I called Ms. Pigette’s smartphone last week to check on her.

But she didn’t want to talk about the weather or even the *&**#**truck drivers who splash her as she stands firm holding up a mailbox on Route 27. This time, she was mad at politicians and wanted to vent.

“Why in the dickens did 10 Republican senators join with Democrats to vote in opposition to the president’s wall funding,” she asked.

The answer is complicated, and I reminded her the president asked the Congress to give him several billion bucks so he could build a wall across the southern border and they refused. Then the president ignored them, declared a national emergency, and said he would take his wall billions out of the defense budget.

That created a crisis. Under the Constitution, Congress, not the president, has the power to raise and allocate funds. When the president went ahead and declared a national emergency, Congress said he was wrong, and the House then passed legislation blocking the president’s action.

Last week, it came up for a vote in the Senate and 12 Republicans sided with the Democrats to oppose the president. Then the president issued a veto.

“OK, ancient news guy,” she said. “If the president was ignoring the Constitution, why didn’t more Republicans oppose him? It seems to me both Republicans and Democrats spend a lot of time speechifying about the wisdom of the Founding Fathers and the majesty of the Constitution.”

“Oink, Oink my lovely pal, you are correct. And you are wrong. You have to remember politics Rule #1. A politician's first job is to get elected. Unless they are elected, they cannot do anything. They can’t raise a stink and get on TV. They can’t pass laws. Heavens to Murgatroyd, they might even have to buy lunch.”

Then I explained the flip side of Rule #1. Anything that would threaten or jeopardize their chance to be elected, and stay elected, is to be avoided like Superman avoids Kryptonite.

When you look into the list of 12 Republicans who opposed the president, most of them, except for our own Susan Collins, are not up for re-election on 2020. The other Republican senators just went along with the president because they didn’t want to stand up to him. Others, who had pledged to defy the president, backed down after the President said the magic words: a possible primary challenge.

“OK, OK, I get it,” she said. “But what happens if the special counsel, Robert Mueller, drops his report and it contains a blockbuster bombshell?”

“Then the fun begins,” I replied. “Speaker Nancy Pelosi is a good vote counter. Last week, she ruled out impeachment unless there is a Mueller blockbuster triggering Republican support.”

“Why would House Democrats go along with Pelosi? Some of them want to impeach the president because they think he is a jerk,” she said.

I countered that impeachment is a political act. It is up to the politicians to impeach.

“Go back to the Constitution for a minute,” I said. “It says officials can be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and the House impeaches, but two-thirds of the Senate must vote to convict. In the current political lineup, that means all the Democrats and 20 Republicans must vote to convict to remove a president.”

“You mean the Republicans would have to work with the Democrats, (and vice versa) to remove the president,” Pigette said.

“Correct-o-mundo,” I said. “Impeachment is not another word for a do-over. It is not a Mulligan. Even thinking about overturning the vote of the people is a serious undertaking to be used in only the most serious cases.”

“Wait a minute,” she interrupted. “Didn’t the Republicans impeach Bill Clinton because he lied about a love affair?”

“Yes, they did. And it backfired. After Clinton was acquitted, he was more popular than ever.”

“After Congress began the impeachment of President Richard Nixon, he resigned when leaders of both parties told him there were enough Senate votes to remove him from office.

“Look at the calendar. Even if Democrats voted impeachment this week, it would turbocharge the bitterly divided electorate. It would take two years to get through the legal mumbo jumbo involved in the process. And, dear Pigette, by that time, we would be in the middle 2020 election season, and it would be time for the voters to decide who lives in the White House for the next four years.

“Speaker Pelosi is right. Unless Mueller drops an atomic bomb outraging us all, Congress should stay away from impeachment and let the voters decide who should be president, not the politicians.”