Susan Collins digs herself an even deeper hole
Even as mainstream America is trying to grapple what to do next after a morally bankrupt Republican Party put an alleged serial sexual assaulter on the Supreme Court without allowing the allegations to be investigated first, everyone keeps coming back to one question: why did Susan Collins not only do the wrong thing, but make it all about her? Seriously, why? Even Saturday Night Live acknowledged last night that her career and legacy are finished. So what is Collins doing now? Digging an even deeper hole for herself.
It wasn’t just that Susan Collins voted for Brett Kavanaugh; given her past voting record on swing votes, there was always a 50-50 chance that she would. It’s that she gave a lengthy and bizarre speech before announcing her vote, and the sole purpose of that speech seemed to be alienating as many of her own constituents as possible, in the ugliest way possible. If she had quietly cast her vote and then disappeared from the cameras for a bit, perhaps the primary blame would have fallen on someone like Jeff Flake instead. But, no, Collins wanted to take the blame for this. She still does.
This morning Susan Collins hit the Sunday morning talk show circuit and repeated the disgusting things she said during her Senate floor speech, making sure that they reached an even larger audience. If her odds of reelection were rock bottom when the day began, they’re now half that. Again, why? She had lunch with Mitch McConnell immediately before giving her Senate floor speech, and that may be the starting point in trying to get to the bottom of this.
The American public deserves to know what transpired during that meeting. What could McConnell have put on the table that Collins considered so important, she was willing to go out and aggressively ruin her career and reputation by not only voting for Kavanaugh, but becoming his publicist? Was it a campaign check so large, she couldn’t say no? If so, that was pretty stupid of her, considering that the Resistance has already raised millions earmarked for her defeat, and will out-raise any amount the GOP decides to put behind her. Was she blackmailed into not only casting a “yes” vote, but giving that horrid Trump-ian speech? Was she simply stupid enough to believe that attacking everyone who disapproves of Kavanaugh could go well for her?
SNL already gave us our answer about how this is going to play out for Susan Collins, when it had her announcing that she’s going to lose to a Democrat in 2020. Everyone, everywhere knows that Collins just ended her career – except, seemingly, her. Did she decide to go out and make things even worse on television this morning because she’s under the delusion that it’ll somehow help her, or because she’s still carrying out her part of the deal?
