A Team Player

In the Morning Sentinel, Republican Mayor of Waterville Paul LePage makes the case for Sen. Collins' re-election, trotting out a number of specious claims that are nonetheless part of the conventional wisdom about the junior senator.

Or at least, they used to be:

For the past 12 years, Sen. Susan Collins has amassed a voting record second to none...

She is not timid in challenging her party leadership, while maintaining the single-minded purpose of prioritizing the needs of the people of the state of Maine. She remains reliably in the mainstream...

She will buck leadership when it comes to representing her constituents...

It's an awfully gauzy appraisal, striking for its vagueness: LePage references not a single vote in defense of his claims.

But for the benefit of readers new to the conversation, here's a sampling of the junior senator's stances, which put the lie to LePage's argument:

Collins voted yes on the Iraq war.

She supports an indefinite, taxpayer-funded occupation of that country.

She voted yes on all three of President Bush's irresponsible, budget-busting tax cuts.

She voted yes on Judge Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court.

She supports letting phone companies off the hook, retroactively, for illegal wiretapping.

She voted yes on the suspension of habeas corpus.

I could go on.

But in short, this is not the record of a someone "challenging her party leadership." And it's certainly not "mainstream" in the context of Maine values.

Rather, it's the record of a Bush enabler, a water carrier for Karl Rove and former Sen. Rick Santorum's definition of a quintessential Republican "team player."