Susan Collins’s near-retirement speaks directly to the frustrations of Washington
Susan Collins was destined to be a senator — one of consequence at that.
In the summer of 1974, she interned for a freshman Republican playing a key role on the House Judiciary Committee’s Watergate inquiry. A few years later, when William S. Cohen moved up to the Senate, Collins joined his staff and rose to become a top committee staffer.
Striking out on her own, Collins ran a muddled gubernatorial campaign in 1994, finishing third in what was otherwise a great Republican year. Two years later, amid a bleak election season for the GOP, Collins won the Senate seat of her retiring boss. Over the course of 21 years, she has risen to the rank of the most influential moderate in the chamber.
Collins has held sway on the federal purse strings for shipbuilding contracts that are critical to Maine, and on the Intelligence Committee’s investigation of President Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Her clout made her slow-dance with the idea of giving up and heading home for a run for governor, a major moment for the state of the Senate.
Many colleagues breathed a sigh of relief when Collins, 64, ended her flirtation and recommitted herself to trying to steer the Senate back to its once-gloried reputation.
She excoriated Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s handling of the health-care debate this summer — then blasted his Democratic predecessors. But she made clear that Washington is the place for her, and, more importantly, that the Senate is where she believes she can do the most good by trying to temper its partisan edges.
Collins could be found guilty of basking a bit too much in the attention, with national news outlets on hand. She waited more than 20 minutes into her speech to address her intentions, what she called “the elephant in the room.”
But the stakes were that high — not merely for her, but for the Senate itself.
Enough about McCain. It was Collins, Murkowski and red-state Democrats who killed Trumpcare.
If Collins ran for and won next year’s gubernatorial race, the signal would be clear: The center cannot hold, and the institution belongs only to the partisans of the right and left. “There are very few who have the ability to bring about positive change, you are such a person,” one colleague wrote to Collins in recent days.