I'm so hardcore right-wing that I consider Genghis Khan a sissy femboy, but I must confess my adoration for Sen. Susan Collins. You know Susan Collins? She's a Republican from Maine, which is a lot like finding leftovers in Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker's fridge. It's theoretically possible, but you never truly expect to see it actually happen.
And yet it has happened. For five six-year terms, the good people of the Maple Syrup 'n Moose State have sent this Republican off to Washington, D.C. She's now running for a sixth term, in which, next November, she'll face either Herr Obergruppendoofus Graham Platner (D-Nuremberg) or Gov. Janet Mills (D-Sunny Acres). If Collins wins – or, rather, when she wins – she'll remain the last elected Republican senator north of Pennsylvania. And, as far as I am concerned, she has a permanent "Get Out of Conservative Media Outrage" card that allows her to do whatever she needs to make that happen, no matter how annoying what she does is in the short term.
It's super weird to have a Republican in New England, and we conservatives need to sit back, shut up, and enjoy the ride. How did it happen? The people of Maine are known for being quirky, starting with how they choose to live in Maine. Some of us like cold weather and woods; folks like me prefer our trees palm and our food Mexican. But Mainers are gonna Maine. They lean blue, and it's getting worse as a result of the invasion of the Chardonnay crones from the rest of New England who flee north to escape the damage they've done to their home states, yet feel compelled to bring the same garbage politics they are trying to escape from along with them.
Maine does its own electoral thing. Angus King is Maine's other senator, and he calls himself an independent even though he is the dancing monkey to Democrat organ grinder Chuck Schumer. Democrat Jared Golden is one of their two House representatives, and he occasionally votes across party lines because his district is Trumpy. In fact, Trump won an electoral vote by winning Golden's 2nd Congressional District in 2016, 2020, and 2024, because Maine is one of those states that divides its electoral votes. It also uses ranked-choice voting, because it's Maine, and they are odd.
This refusal to just be normal is why it isn't a huge surprise that Mainers are willing to entertain somebody like Susan Collins despite the "R." She seals the deal because she is a remarkably smart, effective, and tireless politician who knows exactly what kind of representation her constituents want and gives it to them no matter how much the rest of her party whines about the way she does it. Her constituents dig her. No one is better at patting backs and glad-handing than Susan Collins. I haven't been to Maine except one time, 50 years ago – I saw a moose – but the people who go there a lot tell me that she walks down the street and literally knows everybody she sees. And it's not fake. She's genuine. Susan Collins loves her state, loves her people, and does what she thinks is right by them. You really couldn't ask for more than that in a senator. Mainers accept nothing less.
This is a woman who puts her state first, but let's face it. She's not a conservative firebrand. She's not a conservative at all. She's one of those old New England Republicans, the kind that doesn't exist anymore except for her. She's pro-choice and buys into a lot of the kind of social issue nonsense that tiresome old-school Republicans used to believe in. In many ways, she could've been a blue dog Democrat in another age, before they were all put down by the MSNBC addicts. Today, she's as far left as you can get in the Senate GOP caucus, and I don't care.
Not at all.
Here's the thing. We're never going to do better in Maine. Ever. Just be glad she exists. But there's another thing. You can't be angry with someone who is not a fraud. She's not a Thom Tillis or a Jimmy Lankford who talks a good game about being conservative and gets to Washington and proceeds to stick us in the back. She's not betraying us because she never pretended to be a conservative in the first place. She is who she is, and she's going to represent her state her way, and she doesn't care what you think, or what I think, or what John Thune thinks, or what Chuck Schumer thinks. All she cares about is what that lumberjack, oysterman, moose wrangler, or maple syrup monger thinks.
And she takes her job seriously; she's not chair of the Appropriations Committee because she does viral TikToks. She really cares about what she's doing. Do you remember when she went through that whole Hamlet thing about Brett Kavanaugh? She wasn't being performative. She was trying to decide whether this guy deserved her vote, and she came to the objectively right and fair decision. And she delivers when she votes for a Republican majority leader.
As much as I would like her to be the second coming of Jim Banks or Mike Lee or Eric Schmitt or any of the other hardcore conservative senators, that's not who she is, and that's not who her state is. We're never going to elect a Republican senator from Maine who is with us 99% of the time. But with Susan Collins, we're going to get somebody who is with us 75% of the time, and you know, that's good enough. It sure beats no percent of the time.
There's another thing about Susan Collins that I admire. She's got an important skill for a politician, a general, or a guy trying to meet girls in a bar. She's lucky. Look at the Democrat clown car that pulls up and disgorges a circus every time there's a primary in Maine. Her opponent ends up spending 100 million bucks of Democrat donor cash jousting at the windmill, and gets his, her, or their clock cleaned. Some pinko darling of the Left is not going to outwork Susan Collins even if they outspend her.
This time, the Democrats are putting up either their current governor, Janet Mills, who makes Mrs. Methuselah look like Shirley Temple, or Graham Platner, the failson, hicklib weirdo who either knew he had a Nazi tattoo etched into his torso or, arguably worse, was too stupid to know he had a Nazi tattoo etched into his torso (Of course, he knew what it was; Democrats are happy to have him lie to their smug, botoxed faces). The lefty base in Maine is delighted at the opportunity to vote for Yellowstone AOCboy, but the lefty base in Maine isn't the real Maine.
Susan Collins is the real Maine, as Maine as it gets. Although she couldn't care less what some hardcore conservative from Southern California thinks, and she shouldn't – this bomb-thrower couldn't be happier to have her genteel, polite, and sober presence representing the Mooseland. I don't want to hear a harsh word about Susan Collins; I'm just glad the GOP big tent is big enough, and our party smart enough, to accommodate her.
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