New York Magazine - USA (2020-02-17)

34 newyork| february17–march1, 2020

inre ferencetotheRepublicansenatorwhoseseat shewasrunning

tofill.CollinshadworkedforCohen,firstasanundergraduate

congressionalinternduringtheyearhefamouslybroke withhis

party andvotedtoimpeachRichard Nixon,thenasa legislative

aideformorethan 12 years.

In’96,CollinswassharplycriticalofJoeBrennan,heropponent

forCohen’s seat, notingthat he“voteda straightpartyline”—with

Democrats—“93percentofthetime” andarguing“Idon’t think

eitherparty hasalltheanswers,andI thinkweneedsomeonewho

is goingtotake anindependentapproach.”

Formany ofthe 23 yearsshe’s sincespentintheSenate,Collins

didmaintaina votingrecord more independentthanyouraverage

bear’s. AccordingtoCQRollCall,shevotedwithDemocraticpresi-

dentsbetween 49 (Clintonin1999)and 85 (Obamain2009)per-

centofthetimeandwithRepublicanpresidentsbetween 59 (Bush

in2008)and 88 (Bushin 2001 and2002)percentofthetime.

Butaccordingtothesamepublication,in 2017 and 20 18,during

theperiodoftheTrumpadministrationwhenRepublicanshada

narrowmajorityintheSenateandeveryvotecounted,Collinsvoted

withTrump 94 percentofthetime.SincetheRepublicanmajority

hasgrown,she’s gonebacktocastingsome(largelydecorative)votes

inopposition,someof whichworkmostlytoalienate herfromhard-

coreTrumpvotersandlooktoliberalslike littlemore thana fig leaf.

Inshort, Collinshasgonefrompleasinganunusuallyhighnum-

berofpeople,atleast someofthetime,topleasingvanishinglyfew

peoplealmostnever.

Herchoicetorunagain,against a backdropofimpeachment,

ever-more partisanpolitics,andherowninsistencethat sheis still

thereasonable,freethinkingpoliticianshehasalwaysclaimedtobe,

promptsquestionsaboutwhat haschanged:Is it SusanCollinsher-

self? Herparty?Oris it simplythat theTrumpera hasrevealed

somethingaboutCollins,that themoderationonwhichshebuilther

Senate careerwasneverquiteasdefiningasshemadeit outtobe?

TRYINGTOGETCOLLINS’SATTENTIONhasbecomesomething

ofa weekendsport forsomeMainers.Protestersregularlypost

videosofthemselvesstagingsit-insandvigilsat herMaineoffices.

They bird-dogherflightsinandoutofthestateandtrailherto

announcedradioappearancesandribbon-cuttingceremonies,

sometimesstandingsilentwithsigns,sometimeslobbingquestions

atheronthestreet.In earlyJanuary,progressiveorganizations

boughtgiantmovablebillboardsurgingeightSenateRepublicans,

Collinschiefamongthem,toholdTrumpaccountableduringim-

peachment.OneofthosebillboardswoundupinfrontoftheBan-

gorhomeof StephenKing,a longtimecriticof Collins,wholiveson

thesamestreetasshedoes.

DanAibel,a NewYorkplaywrightwhofor 13 yearshasmain-

tainedtheCollinsWatchblogandnowTwitterhandle—dedicated

totrackingtheactionsandcoverageof Maine’sseniorsenator—tells

methatforyears,peoplewonderedabouthisquixoticinterest,but

nolonger. “It usedtobethisweird, curiousthing,” hesaid.“ ‘Whyare

yousofocusedonSusanCollins?’Andnowthevery samepeoplesay,

‘OhmyGod,tellmewhat’sgoingonwithSusanCollins.’ ”

Multipleorganizationsthat hadpreviouslyendorsedorsup-

portedCollinshaveturnedonherforthefirsttime:naral. The PHOTOGRAPH: ROD LAMKEY JR./SIPA USA/AP IMAGES (PREVIOUS SPREAD)

ast fall, Erik Mercer, a Maine social worker and psychotherapist, saw one of

his senators, the Republican Susan Collins, while he was waiting for a plane in

Washington, D.C. Mercer, a Democrat, had approached Collins on a plane once

before, after the 2016 election, to thank her for a ferociously worded op-ed she

had published before the election calling Donald Trump “unworthy of being our

president” and declaring that she would not be voting for him.
This time, he asked if he could sit next to her and then described
the trouble he was having explaining to his children that the presi-
dent was above the law, mentioning particularly the terrible things
Trump says about women. Collins, he recalled, replied that she
didn’t believe the president had said anything bad about women
for a while, and that she couldn’t comment further because she was
a potential juror in his Senate trial. The conversation was frustrat-
ing, and he called a friend immediately afterward to complain
about what he perceived as Collins’s lack of courage.
Mercer soon found himself just behind Collins on the jet bridge
and overheard her tell another passenger that a constituent had
just been “very rude” to her. Mercer cut in: “You were the one who
refused to answer my questions. I was trying to do the work of
democracy, and you refused to participate.”
“He called me a coward,” Collins said to her companion.
When he got back to Maine, Mercer took out a full-page ad in
the Portland Press Herald recounting their interaction. Soon, Col-
lins’s spokesperson Annie Clark was telling Press Herald columnist
Bill Nemitz that Mercer had been “aggressive, confrontational, and
sanctimonious.” Those exact words later appeared in a letter to the
editor sent by political consultant Larry McCarthy, best known as
the mastermind behind George H.W. Bush’s “Willie Horton” ad in
1988, who had been with Collins on the flight.
In the span of Trump’s administration, Collins has gone from
being broadly beloved, understood as one of the more humane and
thoughtful Republicans in her party, to finding herself in brawls like
this, widely reviled, regarded by Democrats as a loyal foot soldier
to her ever-more-extreme right-wing cohort and party leader and
yet by some members of that cohort as an unreliable waffler.
In 2015, polling firm Morning Consult found Collins to have, at
78 percent, the highest approval ratings of any Republican senator,
second only to Bernie Sanders in the whole body. But this January,
the same survey found her approval at 42 percent and her disap-
proval at 52; she is now the most unpopular American senator,
beating out even her caucus leader, Mitch McConnell.
And that survey was taken before Collins’s ineffectual vote to call
witnesses in Trump’s impeachment trial, and then her vote to acquit
him, choices likely to have endeared her to no one and that set her
up in contrast to Utah senator Mitt Romney, who, in voting to con-
vict the president and leader of his own party and giving a moving
speech laying out his reasons for doing so, embodied the kind of
politician Collins had long promised voters she was.
To many, even those most critical of her, Collins appears caught
in a miserable position: the only remaining Republican senator in
New England, torn between an unrelentingly disciplined caucus,
Trump’s punitive base, and a liberalish Maine constituency, all dur-
ing a period of enormously high stakes. But it’s not like Collins
wound up in this bind by tragic happenstance.
In December, the 67-year-old senator—who, when she first ran
for the Senate in 1996 vowed to serve only two terms, declaring,
“Twelve years ... long enough to be in public service”—announced
o fif m in.
lf ve p clannish-
ness. “I want to continue the independent, moderate, and thought-
ful tradition of Bill Cohen,” Collins said, during her first Senate race,