Hard Ball

Philip Anschutz, the right-wing billionaire whose GOP-aligned Examiner.com trumpeted the paranoid insinuation that Google was out to get Sen. Collins, owes $143.6 million in back taxes, according to the IRS.

Which is not to say this reflects in any way on the junior senator herself.

But the week after not the first, not the second but the third corporate-backed, anti-union astroturf organization began spending money in Maine to re-elect Collins, it's a reminder that her big money backers are willing to go to great lengths to defend their interests.