Mooney: Maine Wants New Leaders

Am I wrong to read this Op-Ed by Republican second district congressional candidate Thomas Cornelius Mooney as a slap at Sen. Collins? I don't think so:

A palpable sense of desperation was evident in the voice of most every person involved in this teleconference. And while Sen. Collins was very empathetic and considerate in her responses to them, one couldn’t help but come away with the sense that a majority of Mainers remain deeply dissatisfied with our leaders, and that our nation is very much on the wrong track.

[...]

Americans must now elect new, more courageous leadership to help transform our nation; to reprioritize spending, and invest in our own people, for this season, and for seasons to come.

They Write Op-Eds

Craig and Kathie Jamison Cote, in Saturday's BDN:

Veterans Day holds a special significance for us as the parents of a sergeant tank commander in the U.S. Army serving in Iraq.

[...]

Instead of accepting the reality of the situation on the ground and listening to the American people, the president continues to stand by a failed strategy and Sen. Collins follows him down this dangerous path, at times saying that she is against the war but refusing to support binding legislation to end it. She is the lone remaining member of our state's congressional delegation to endorse the president's failed policy.

[...]

Sen. Collins won't even explain her position to her constituents, having turned down an invitation to a community town hall to discuss Iraq in Orono this summer. As constituents of Sen. Collins, and as the parents of a soldier serving in Iraq, we find it personally insulting that Sen. Collins won't answer questions from her constituents on the war in such forums.

Emphasis added.

Myers Watch

When a young lawyer named Julie Myers was nominated in 2005 to head the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), questions were raised about her thin resume, which didn't contain any relevant immigration or bureaucracy management experience.

She did happen, however, to be the niece of retired Joint Chiefs Chair Richard B. Myers, and the wife of Michael Chertoff's chief of staff. Seriously.

Democrats held up her nomination.

But Myers, 36--vastly underqualified to manager a giant new agency with 20,000 employees--was given a recess appointment by the Bush administration.

Sen. Collins supported Myers.

Flash forward to this week: With Myers once again up for confirmation (as her recess appointment nears its expiration) Collins is having second thoughts:

A key Senate Republican has launched an investigation into the circumstances surrounding a controversial Halloween party at the Homeland Security Department, in which an agency director approved of a racially insensitive costume.

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs ranking member Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Wednesday she asked her staff to question Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Julie Myers over the incident.

Myers, whose confirmation is pending in the Senate, had judged an employee's costume of dreadlocks, dark makeup and prison stripes as the most original at an ICE party last week and even posed for photographs with the worker.

Collins said she is now withholding judgment whether to support Myers' nomination.

Myers also allegedly had the photographs destroyed.

In any event, with the Myers nomination--and as so often seems to be the case--Sen. Collins seems to be less troubled by questions of substance than with appearances.

Of course, in this case, appearances matter: It's beyond unprofessional for the head of a major government agency to tolerate casual racism, let alone to endorse it.

But anyone who was paying attention knew Myers wasn't right for the ICE job two years ago.

Rothenberg: Collins Vulnerable

Via Maine Politics, we learn that the latest rankings from the Rothenberg Political Report classify the Collins-Allen race as "narrow advantage for incumbent."

It's one of eight races the nonpartisan report sees as competitive.

Mukasey Watch

I'm a little late in noting that Sen. Collins voted in favor of Michael Mukasey's appointment as Attorney General yesterday.

Apparently she's content to have a chief law enforcement officer who's vague about whether he intends to enforce the laws.

Allen: Iraq War A Fiscal Mess, Too

They write columns:

Advocates of changing the mission say it could leave around 60,000 troops in Iraq indefinitely (although the number could be much higher). The CBO evaluated a scenario that is consistent with this strategy at a cost of another $687 billion through 2017. And, since all of this is deficit spending, CBO projects that American taxpayers will spend an additional $152 billion in interest on this borrowed money by 2017.

As a member of Congress for 11 years and of the House Budget Committee for the last three, I can attest that such forecasts invariably underestimate the eventual cost and that the credibility of predictions from administration officials has been consistently unreliable.

$687 billion could cover a lot of diabetes prevention programs.

Another New Poll

Via Senate Guru, we learn of another poll, this one from Survey USA: Collins 55%; Allen 38%.

Those numbers are roughly in line with what we've been seeing elsewhere lately.

Maine and Term Limits

Maine Democrats flags a Kennebec Journal article discussing Tuesday's election referendum number five:

The fifth ballot question would extend term limits for state legislators from four consecutive terms, or eight years; to six consecutive terms, or 12 years.

Voters passed the current law in 1993, effective in 1996. Maine is one of 15 states with term limits for state lawmakers, and the only one in New England.

[...]

In a statewide poll of likely voters released last week...most opposed changing the term-limits law.

The Critical Insights poll of 408 people, with a margin of error of 4.1 percentage points, found...close to two-thirds of those polled--64 percent--opposed allowing state lawmakers to keep their jobs longer. Only 32 percent supported it, with another 4 percent undecided.

Interesting.

Of course, whether it tells us anything about how Mainers will weigh Sen. Collins' broken term-limit promise as the 2008 race heats up is an open question.

But the lopsided results suggest breaking the two-term pledge just might come back to haunt her.

New Poll

Via Maine Web Report we learn about a new poll from Critical insights: 54% to 34%, in favor of Sen. Collins. 12% undecided.

Charge It

Sen. Collins sure has a lot of ideas for spending tax dollars.

The problem is, you can't have it both ways: You can't support every single one of President Bush's budget-busting tax cuts for the mega-rich, and then turn around and complain about funding cuts.

While at the same time touting your credentials as a deficit hawk.

Most Republicans want to cut taxes and shrink the government. Most Democrats want to let tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires expire, investing the revenue in healthcare, the environment, etc.

But Sen. Collins votes for low taxes for the rich and plenty of new spending.

It's an intellectually dishonest and fiscally irresponsible position. And it's one of the reasons the country is swimming in debt.

All Pops and Buzzes

Sen. Collins says that "a lot more work needs to be done." And she calls for agencies to work together.

But I don't think I can locate a single idea, proposal or bit of policy analysis in this entire five minute softball interview:



Encouraging people to work better or harder or with more coordination isn't leadership. It's cheerleading.

Mukasey Watch

Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey isn't sure whether the interrogation practice of near-asphyxiation--triggering the gag reflex via simulated drowning--is intended to cause suffering or prolonged mental harm.

What does Sen. Collins think about waterboarding? About Mukasey? Why hasn't anyone in the Maine press corps asked her?

They Get Endorsements

The Maine AFL-CIO is with Rep. Tom Allen. From their press release:

BANGOR--Delegates to the Maine AFL-CIO Convention voted unanimously to endorse Rep. Tom Allen, Democrat, in the U.S. Senate race with incumbent Susan Collins.

"Congressman Allen has consistently championed the interest of Maine’s working families," said AFL-CIO President Eddie Gorham. "On trade, jobs, health care and worker rights to organize he has led the way."

[...]

Congressman Allen has a 96% lifetime AFL-CIO voting record whereas Senator Collins has a 34% lifetime voting record..."When you compare the two candidates on working family issues its no contest," added Matt Schlobohm, Maine AFL-CIO political director...

The Maine AFL-CIO represents more than 30,000 workers throughout the state of Maine.

Office Hours

Press release:

U.S. Senator Susan Collins today announced that a representative from her Bangor office will hold office hours in Danforth on Thursday, November 8th.

Staff Assistant Jessie Logan will be available to hear constituents voice any concerns they might have and to provide assistance with federal issues and agencies, such as Social Security, Veterans Affairs, Citizenship and Immigration. No appointment is necessary.

Danforth Town Office
18 Central Street
Danforth
Thursday, November 8th
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM

Questions about Iraq, FISA and habeas corpus would also, presumably, be entertained.

BDN Loads The Deck

Friday's Bangor Daily News features a maddeningly misleading article, built on a loaded premise, about Senate race fundraising.

The fog rolls in right in the first paragraph:

Sen. Susan Collins has received more money from her congressional colleagues than any other member of Congress, and Rep. Tom Allen has received more money from out of state than any other House member.

This obscures much more than it reveals.

Allen, after all, isn't running for the House. And his House colleagues aren't running for the Senate. So comparing his fundraising profile to those of his House colleagues sets up a false and unhelpful contrast.

What readers need to know, instead, to determine whether Allen is up to anything unusual, is how his fundraising compares to other candidates for Senate.

Figuring this out isn't exactly rocket science.

So it's extremely hard to understand why reporter Rebekah Metzler would build her story around this red herring rather than looking for a more meaningful measure of Allen's out-of-state support.

Unfortunately, it gets worse.

Because for all the article's talk of Allen's out-of-state funds (and there's a lot of it) Metzler apparently couldn't find any space to answer the obvious companion question How much money is Sen. Collins raising outside of Maine?

But the answer to that question saps the article of whatever credibility it has left.

Consider: According to OpenSecrets.org, Sen. Collins received nearly $1.3 million in out-of-state funds between 2001 and 2006. (2006-7 data is not yet available on the site.)

That amounts to more than sixty percent of the funds she raised during the period, compared to less than forty percent in Maine.

Contrast those totals to Allen's $500,000 in out-of-state money, which amounts to "about a fourth" of his total receipts.

And Allen is the one whose out-of-state money is drawing scrutiny? Even though Collins has historically raised far more money--and a higher percentage of it--outside Maine than Allen has in this race? It's enough to make a person's head spin.

Now, perhaps the Collins camp duped Metzler into parroting their charges. Or maybe what we're seeing here is simply sloppy reporting.

But whatever the case, it's disturbing. And it deserves an explanation.

The Right Flank

Sen. Collins has made it onto the conservative Powerline blog's Pork Dishonor Role for supporting wasteful spending. And the right-leaning, Collins-friendly Examiner is accusing her and some other Republicans of "jump[ing] off a political cliff."

Says the Examiner:

Some [of these Republicans] are retiring, thank goodness. It would be better for the GOP if all of them headed home for good.

I'm not sure why the junior senator is supporting hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks for New York and Pennsylvania.

But these are two more votes Mainers might have wished that she'd missed.

Kennebec Journal Silliness

The paper's editors let op-Ed scribe George Smith get away with this gem:

Money drives your votes and rarely does the underfunded candidate win.

Sen. Susan Collins has raised $3.6 million for her 2008 re-election campaign while her Democratic challenger, U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, struggles along with just $2.2 million. Although she has one-third more money than Allen, Collins won't win by that margin. More like 10 to 12 percent.

Smith is free to make whatever prediction he wants.

But in an era where party money, DSCC and NRSC money and independent expenditures all matter, his suggestion that a campaign's health can be distilled down to one number is silly.

And his claim that "rarely does the underfunded candidate win" is just plain wrong.

There were 32 senate races in 2006 (Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) ran unopposed). Of those 32, the candidate with less money won in eight. (Scroll down to "Candidate Receipts and Party Spending in All Senate Races, 2006" for a .PDF.)

That's nowhere near a majority, granted. But the 8 for 32 figure demonstrates pretty clearly that while money matters, it isn't destiny.

As I said, Smith is entitled to his opinion. But I wish Kennebec Journal's editors would hold him to the facts.

More On The Poll

My blasé initial reaction to the new Maine senate poll may have been premature. Digging deeper into the results, one number sticks out as a genuine surprise:

Sen. Collins' approval rating clocks in at an underwhelming 56% (adding up the "approve" and "strongly approve" columns.)

That amounts to a 13 point drop from SurveyUSA's July 25, 2006 result.

Now, you'd expect Collins' number to erode as the race unfolds. But a double-digit slide this early in the cycle strikes me as a newsworthy development. It suggests that the junior senator's consistent support for President Bush on Iraq has taken a significant toll.

UPDATE: I'd be remiss not to mention this April poll, which I'd somehow forgotten all about.

It shows similar results on the head-to-head question. I haven't yet been able to track down that survey's approval number for Collins.

Kos Poll

Markos Moulitsas and Co. have shelled out the big bucks for an independent Maine Senate race poll. And while I wish I could say that the results are shocking or provocative, they're about what you would expect:

If 2008 election for U.S. Senate were held today, for whom would you vote for if the choices were between Tom Allen, the Democrat, and Susan Collins, the Republican?

Collins (R) 56
Allen (D) 33

Kos adds:

Allen needs to push Collins below 50 percent within the next 4-6 months for this race to become top-tier. He's got the material to work with.

I think that's about right.

On the one hand, Rep. Allen certainly has his work cut out for him. He's going to need not just to get the word out about his own strengths, but change Mainers minds about a (relatively) popular legislator.

On the other hand, the race doesn't look like the slam dunk that Sen. Collins' backers might have expected it would be fifteen months ago. She's still the favorite, but to win she'll need to hold off a strong, serious challenge.

In other words, things are just about where you'd anticipate they'd be.

Question for ME Reporters

How does Sen. Collins feel about granting retroactive immunity to telecom companies that illegally shared customer records with the executive branch without a warrant?

Just wondering.