4 days until the election
Susan Collins lost her touch, Now it looks like the senator from Maine could lose her seat.
Susan Collins is the Hamlet- te of Maine.
To be or not to be … a compliant aa Republican, the last GOP senator standing in New England.
All hand- wringy and will- I or won’t- ww I toe the partisan line? Perchance, as Collins has done often enough, hoe her own row instead, in the proud Yankee tradition of political independence.
Now, will- she or won’t- she secure a fifth term, already the longest serving Republican senator from a traditionally blue state — each time winning by double- digit margins — and hold off intense competition from challenger Sara Gideon, Maine’s Democratic House Speaker. Who, by the way, shut down the House seven months ago a to focus on this competi- tion.
And hardly a day goes by without ww Maine’s most famous resident, bestselling horror author Stephen King, boxing Collins about the ears to his 6.1 million Twitter followers: “Hey- hey, ho- ho, Susan Collins has got to go.”
There may no longer be any niche- space on the political landscape for an elected representative who can inch to the left and inch to the right, as circumstances warrant. Viewed VV more as not a team player instead, which is also how President Donald Trump last week described Dr. Anthony nn Fauci, arguably the most trusted man in America. Viewed VV more as erratic, con- tradictory, susceptible to armtwisting. Or bit of a tease.
Sixty- seven- year- old Collins was ww not that long ago among the t most popular Republican senators in the country, admired for her principles, for deep roots that animated state issues over the national cacophony in Washington. But four days out from the election, she may be the least popular senator in her own party.
In a state where former vicepresident Joe Biden was on Thursday leading Trump in the various polls by 12 to 15 points, Collins has been transformed into the underdog — which ww could further imperil the tt GOP’s precarious hold on its Senate majority.
The underdog, apparently, in a fierce battle with Gideon. That’s a particularly urgent matter as Democrats, apart from the presidential ticket, are aa gunning to flip control of the tt Senate, while expanding t their majority in the House of Representatives.
Paul LePage, former Republican governor of Maine, recently told a conservative radio show host that his phone has been ringing off the hook with Collins defectors — because she’s managed to tick off both Democrats and Republicans. LePage, a long- time Collins critics, is this year supporting her re- election, advising callers: “I’ll buy the clothespin. You YY just pinch your nose and vote.” v
At the moment, Republicans have a 53- 47 edge over Democrats in the upper House, which ww is why they were able to quick- qq stomp Amy Coney Bar- rett, overtly conservative appeals court judge, onto the United States Supreme Court this past Monday by a vote of 52- 48. First time in 151 years that a justice was confirmed without the support of a single member of the minority party, underscoring the bitter partisan divide.
But see that teeny mathematical discrepancy — 52 instead of 53 Republicans lining up behind Barrett.
Collins was the only member of her party to break ranks. Not, she stressed in a written submission to the congressional record, because Barrett lacked the bona fides for the top bench or because she’s, well, ww radically reactionary, likely to right- tilt influence the court’s decisions for decades to come.
“To be clear, my vote does not reflect any conclusion that I have reached on Judge Barrett’s qualifications to serve on the Supreme Court. What I have concentrated on is being fair and consistent, and I do not think it is fair nor consistent to have a Senate confirmation vote prior to the election.”
Three years ago, Collins voted to confirm Barrett to her position as a circuit judge on the Court of Appeals, with just three Democrats joining Republicans to approve the nomination. Four years ago, Collins was ww a lonely voice of reason — at a least let’s talk to the guy — when ww President Barack Obama sought to nominate Merrick Garland to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Antonin Scalia. Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell wasn’t having any of it, insisting the nomination should be left to the next president — seven months from the election. Now, of course, McConnell has pivoted because it served his purpose to contrive a conservative majority on the court.
Back in 2018, Democrats were hopeful that Collins would vote against confirming Judge Brett Kavanagh, amidst allegations of sexual misconduct about the nominee. Nope. Collins voted in favour of confirmation, delivering a 45- minute speech on the Senate floor, in which she claimed to believe that Christine Blasey Ford had indeed been sexually assaulted — as the professor had testified — but did not believe that Kavanagh was her attacker.
That was tap- dancing a bit too far for Maine Democrats, who’d ww historically voted for Collins because, frankly, they liked her and she wasn’t an ideologue. They’ve not forgotten Kavanaugh, though.
Nor has it slipped their minds that, while ww Collins congratulates herself for casting the deciding vote to spare the Affordable Care Act, protecting people with ww pre- existing conditions ( which is going to the Supreme Court anyway, within days of the election) she’d also climbed down, withdrew her proposed amendment to the sweeping $ 1.5- trillion ( U. S.) tax overhaul — Trump’s centrepiece legislative achievement — that lavished tax cuts on corporations and rich folks.
Her amendment would ww have expanded a tax credit making child care more affordable. aa The day after she tabled it, she pulled it.
Her helter- skelter record leaves Collins in a very tenuous place. Business- friendly moderation and bipartisanship — her strong suits — aren’t flying so well these profoundly polarized days.
Didn’t help her case either in adebate with Gideon on Wednesday WW when, permitted 30 seconds to answer a question about systemic racism, she required only five seconds for her response: “I do not believe systemic ss racism is a problem in t the state of Maine.”
That was it, that’s all. The answer won’t endear her to undecided Democrats. Ninetyfour per cent of Mainers identify as white — with Vermont, the whitest state in the union.
Collins also ducked the moderator’s query about whether Trump deserves a second term. “I’m not getting into presidential politics,” said Collins, repeating her position that she can work with either a Trump or Biden administration. “What I don’t want to see is one party control in Washington, because I think that would ww lead to a far- left agenda being pushed through Congress.”
The senator has admitted she didn’t vote for Trump in 2016, instead writing in the name of another aa Republican. She hasn’t revealed how she’ll vote on Tuesday.
Maine is one of only two states ( Nebraska the other) that uses a ranked- choice voting vv system, adopted by referendum since the last presidential election — voters ranking the candidates in order of preference, tabulated in rounds with the lowestranked eliminated until somebody achieves at least 50 per cent. Maine has four electoral votes, vv split — two going to the state’s popular vote winner for president, and one each to the popular vote winner in each of two congressional districts.
But it was the terse almost throwaway comment about no systemic racism in Maine that was ww rankling Democrats on Thursday.
Susan Rice, former national security adviser to Obama and granddaughter gg of immigrants f from Jamaica, took Collins to task on CNN. “I was shocked to hear her say that, quite honestly. There’s systemic racism everywhere in this country. The state of Maine is no exception. It was just … a few years ago when my mother, who lived in Maine, came out of a store to find a Ku Klux Klan flyer for a rally on her vehicle.
“Obviously that’s an extreme version. vv But that was in mid- coast Maine. These things exist everywhere. There are all kinds of challenges that we all face and the first step is acknowledging they exist. So, for Sen. Collins to say that there was no concern of systemic racism in Maine was not just out of touch, it was extraordinarily insensitive. And it shows that she’s really not got her finger on the pulse of what’s happening in her state and the nation more broadly.”
Or she’s lost her touch.
“I do not believe systemic racism is a problem in the state of Maine.”
MAINE SEN. SUSAN COLLINS DURING AN ELECTION DEBATE ON WEDNESDAY