Allen and Collins Interviews

WMTW interviews the candidates. Live and in person.

Links to footage of answers--from both candidates--on a variety of topics can be found at the bottom of the page.

More on this later.

UPDATE: While the open-ended format makes the interviews less helpful than they might have otherwise been, this is the best candidate-to-candidate comparison we've seen so far. Certainly better than anything else we've seen in the Maine media--although that's setting the bar awfully low.

To put it another way: If the AP isn't ashamed of their perfunctory, pared-down Q & A, they ought to be.

Some brief highlights:

--Allen: "If John McCain is elected and Susan Collins is re-elected then Roe v. Wade is gone."

--On the wars: Collins didn't voice any objection to an open-ended commitment in Iraq. But she did come out against sending more troops into the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. Even though that's where everyone believes bin Laden and his inner circle actually are.

--On making health care more affordable: Allen makes a clear, concise case for his universal coverage plan. Collins, on the other hand, goes to bat for...well, it's not really clear.