Politics
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Bill Green, the retired Maine sportscaster whose ads for U.S. Sen. Susan Collins rattled Democrats late in her 2020 race, is back on the air for the Republican with a pitch that echoes his last one.
In the ad, Green speaks as an independent voter and leads with the hostility aimed at the senator who is fighting for a historic sixth term in a toss-up race with former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson, a Democrat.
His new ad comes nearly six years to the day that the Collins campaign used him in a crucial series of spots that gave her a trusted and nonpartisan validator when she needed to cut through nationalized attacks and tap into personal goodwill that carried her to a fifth term.
Green’s new ad began running Tuesday. The Collins campaign had aired it 18 times across Maine by 9:30 a.m. according to AdImpact.
“If you’re wondering why more good people don’t run for office, look at the attacks on Susan Collins,” Green says in the 30-second spot. “Her home and office vandalized, her life threatened, and all those outrageous ads repeatedly proven false.”
It was a reference to a long series of campaign developments. Collins’ Bangor home was egged on Sept. 18. Later that month, someone painted a vulgar message linking her to President Donald Trump on her Biddeford office doors. Bangor police have checked on her home hundreds of times since her 2018 vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Jackson condemned the vandalism at her office. While Bangor Daily News fact checks have found that recent Democratic ads overstated claims about a key Medicaid vote and alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the Democrat also has been targeted by false claims on his tax stances.
Green, the brother of former longtime Collins aide Julie Green, retired from News Center Maine in 2019. The next fall, Democrats flagged his ads as one of the two late developments that worried them most in the final week of the race. Google searches for Green hit their highest point since his retirement that October.
Collins won by nearly 9 points after trailing in every public poll. Green’s 2020 ad opened with a joke and went after “false attacks” by out-of-staters.
“Did you know that Susan Collins hates dogs? That’s kind of what I’m expecting to hear next from a ridiculous smear campaign,” Green said then.