By hedging her bets on abortion and endorsing a return to power by Paul LePage, Collins makes it clear her independence goes only so far
She may be “independent,” but when push comes to shove, Collins must placate her party’s base. Photo: Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/AP/Shutterstock In days of old, when moderate Republicans walked the earth in numbers, they could get away with taking party loyalty for granted as they trod their “independent” path, basking in the adulation of pundits and op-ed writers and banking the support of those plenteous swing voters.
But Susan Collins, one of the last Republican senators anyone could describe as “moderate,” is from Maine, which has a real, viable, and lately very Trumpy Republican Party. So while she can spend much of her time in Washington proclaiming her high-minded freedom from the party line , she does have to cover her right flank back home now and then. That became especially true after she voted to convict Donald Trump of impeachable crimes and misdemeanors earlier this year .
We saw not one but two examples of that pivot to the right on Wednesday. First, she announced in an interview that she would not be supporting the Democratic effort to pass federal legislation protecting pre-viability abortions as a matter of policy in case the Supreme Court fully reverses Roe v. Wade .
LePage was the Maine governor who was sort of a proto-Trump, delighting in crude, offensive, and often racist statements while compiling a record in office typified by his monomaniacal efforts to stop a Medicaid expansion even after Maine voters approved it by a landslide. For eight long years, he was a living reminder of the harsher cultural and political trends beneath the placid surface of New England politics, and now, like a bad penny, he is back seeking a third term.
Susan Collins is 68 years old and won’t be up for reelection until 2026. Presumably, that means she can offend whomever she wants for a few more years and then, if she decides to stick around in the Senate, she won’t have to worry too much about getting her party’s nomination. On the other hand, there’s no telling how far that party will move into the fever swamps by then and whether she has the sturdy boots and stomach to follow.
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