“Susan Collins knows that the path to reopening the government runs squarely through Mitch McConnell’s Republican caucus. So do Mainers, who are begging Collins to put her money where her mouth is and pressure GOP leadership to put an end to this harmful shutdown,” said American Bridge spokesperson Amelia Penniman.
Portland Press Herald: Bill Nemitz: Sen. Collins should stand up to the leaders of her party
By Bill Nemitz | January 6, 2019
- Senators Susan Collins and Cory Gardner, “as of Friday the only two Senate Republicans to at least speak to the absurdity of it all, both face tough re-election campaigns in 2020 and thus are motivated at least in part by self-preservation.”
- “Be that as it may, it’s a sad testimony to the fecklessness of today’s Republican Party that such tepid calls for reopening the federal government would be viewed as acts of political bravery. At what point did we conflate courage with simple common sense?”
- “Noticeably absent from Collins’ comments was any mention of the two men most responsible for this debacle: Trump, who once again failed to foresee the consequences of his impulsive decision making, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, currently the president’s chief enabler.”
- “It’s a strategy that’s growing noticeably less effective for Collins as she weighs her political future.”
- “With the 2020 election already casting a long shadow across Capitol Hill, Collins now finds herself more secure than ever with her Republican constituents, yet steadily losing traction with the independents and Democrats who for so long have rewarded her perceived ‘moderation’ with victory margins well into the double digits.”
- “If this shutdown is as ill-advised as she says it is and if her own party, led by Trump and McConnell, is so clearly responsible for grinding the federal government to a halt, why can’t Collins march into the Senate chamber this week and spend three-quarters of an hour explaining what’s wrong with this picture?”
- “Standing up to the powers that be and, political fortunes be damned, denouncing this degradation of our democracy would be, plainly and simply, the right thing to do. This is no longer a time for political comity – it’s time to start naming names.”
- “Instead, we’re left with our ‘moderate’ senator who ‘broke from her party’ to tell us this shutdown ‘represents a failure to govern.’ We already get that, Senator. What say you actually do something about it?”
Read the full article here.
Published: Jan 7, 2019