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I am tired of screaming at my computer every time I see another ad twisting Sen. Susan Collins’ record beyond recognition. As a Mainer whose family has lived here since the 1620s and as the former chair of the Hancock County Republicans, I know the difference between a real record and a manufactured attack.
They claim insider trading is somehow acceptable to her. In truth, Collins co-wrote a law that made clear members of Congress and their staff are not exempt from insider trading laws in the first place. She did not need to be forced into transparency. She built it.
They claim she voted to cut Medicaid. She did not. She wrote the amendment adding funding for our rural Maine hospitals and voted against the “One Big Beautiful Bill” specifically because of its healthcare cuts, breaking with her own party to do it.
And they claim women are dying because of her. Name them. Collins says she has been pro-choice for her entire career, a position that has set her apart from her own party the whole time, not one she broke toward under pressure. Maine still has some of the strongest abortion protections in the country. Washington did not write them. Maine did.
I think Democrats and their mega-donors cannot find a real argument against a decent, hardworking senator, so they invent one. Mainers deserve better from their newspapers, and better from their politics.
Sandra Blanchette
Orland