McCain to Collins: Buzz Off

This morning on Fox News:



Here's the transcript:

WALLACE: The Republican Sen. Susan Collins, the co-chair of your campaign in Maine, has asked you to stop the robocalls. Will you do that?

McCAIN: Of course not.

It's instructive to watch Sen. McCain's expression as he dismisses Collins' suggestion out of hand. Clearly, he doesn't take it too seriously.

So we've now learned two things we didn't know when we woke up this morning:

1. Despite being state co-chair and "an original member of McCain's 2008 campaign kitchen cabinet," Collins apparently doesn't have enough juice with McCain to get him to clean up his act. Or even to keep his slimy tactics out of Maine.

2. Until we hear differently, the obvious upshot is that Collins is willing to support and work to re-elect a candidate who engages in tactics that, by her own admission, "have no place in Maine politics."

Remember this is a woman who thinks that the central problem with Washington is the rancorous tone.

UPDATE: Here's the transcript. You'll note that McCain never engages the substance of Collins' request. He swats it away, rejecting it as ludicrous, and then leaves it at that.