Sen. Susan Collins has been very, very busy in recent weeks raising boatloads of campaign cash from the easiest place for a Republican to get it: the super-rich, PACs, and corporations. In her desperation to keep her Maine Senate seat, she's even raising money from a competitor of one of her state's biggest employers.
This week in Washington, Huntington Ingalls Industries, the chief competitor of Bath Iron Works in Maine, hosted a fundraiser for her campaign, which she gladly attended. The Wall Street Journal, which obtained a copy of the invitation, notes that the two companies "have clashed over billions of dollars worth of Navy contracts." Collins didn't respond to a request for comment from the WSJ. Shocking, that.
The real kicker though? The thumb in the eye of all Mainers? She's using all this out-of-state money she's raising to go on the air with two new television ads. One of them gives her credit for bringing "thousands of good-paying jobs to Bath Iron Works." Those thousands of workers might just be questioning whether Collins will be committed to making sure they keep those jobs, now that she clearly owes the competition her loyalty.
Oh, and by the way, former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott was a host at this fundraiser. You remember Lott? As the Maine Beacon reports, he's the guy who stepped down from leadership after suggesting that had the country elected white supremacist Strom Thurmond president, "we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."
Collins has chosen her side, and it's not Maine any more. Please give $1 to help Democrats in each of these crucial Senate races, but especially the one in Maine!