The word "moderate" has several different meanings. One definition of the noun form of the word is "A person who is moderate in opinion or opposed to extreme views and actions, especially in religion or politics."
Senator Susan Collins is currently trying to win a third term in the United States Senate, one that she pledged not to seek when she first ran for the office in 1996. She repeated her promise not to pursue a third term in 2002, when she won re-election. Now that she's decided seniority and experience are sufficient reasons to disavow her previous assurances, she wants us to believe that she is that type of moderate, and to be fair, compared to fellow GOP senators like James Coburn and James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, John Cornyn of Texas, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Mississippi's Thad Cochran, and Utah's Orrin Hatch, she is.
However, for the majority of Mainers and Americans who are fed up with the damage our incompetent, dissembling president and his abettors have done to our nation and the world, Ms. Collins does not qualify as anything approaching moderate. It would be more accurate to characterize her as one of George W. Bush's chief enablers.
Until Democrats gained control of the upper house of Congress in 2007 Senator Collins was chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, a group nominally in charge of overseeing the process of engaging corporations or individuals to do work for the government. She was in a position to lead investigations into many questionable deals related to the Iraq War. Some of the contracts awarded were of the "no-bid" variety, and distressing amounts of taxpayer money had gone to corporations which did not do all (or in some cases any) of the work they were hired to do. Interestingly, many of the companies involved in these questionable dealings had donated large sums of money to the Republican Party. In June of 2006 every Democrat on the committee signed a letter to Collins begging her to hold hearings on the billions in Iraqi reconstruction funds that had been squandered due to waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement, but for whatever reasons she declined to do so.
The "moderate" senator who depicts herself as a champion of women's issues voted to put both John Roberts and Samuel Alito, each of whom is a strident opponent of reproductive rights, onto the Supreme Court.
Senator Collins co-wrote, along with Senator Olympia Snowe, a ringing endorsement of President Bush for a second term as President that appeared in the October 17, 2004 edition of the Maine Sunday Telegram. Four years later it makes for an entertaining read, although it's doubtful any of Senator Collins's adherents want it to come to light. In their article the two "moderate" solons concluded "President Bush is a steady leader with a clear purpose for a safer world and a more hopeful America, and we believe he deserves re-election on November 2nd."
Senator Collins's campaign can and will undoubtedly produce scores of Mainers willing to stand in front of a camera and tell their fellow citizens about all the good the senator has done for them. That's great, but so can Congressman Tom Allen, her opponent in this November's election. Serving Mainers is what they're supposed to do; it's in their job descriptions. What percent of Maine's work force expects to get rehired just for performing their basic responsibilities, especially when the annual salary (not including benefits) for the taxpayer-funded position involved is $169,300?
To give credit where credit is due, Senator Collins is a shrewd politician. She has elected not to appear at the Republican National Convention next month, which is consistent with her current politically astute strategy of publicly distancing herself from President Bush on as many issues as she can. However, lest we forget, she was also savvy enough to march in lock step with the chief executive and the right wing of the Republican Party for several years when it was politically expedient for her to do so.
Mainers need and deserve a thoughtful, principled, independent senator more than they do another partisan operator concerned with preserving her (or his) own influence. Don't agree? Here's a list of some of the most skilled and powerful American politicians of the last 20 years: George W. Bush. Dick Cheney. Karl Rove. Alberto Gonzales. Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton. Bill Frist. Newt Gingrich. Nancy Pelosi. Mitch McConnell. Joe Lieberman. Ted Stevens. These folks have been running our government for the past 16 years. How's that been working out?
Moderate can also be an adjective meaning "Mediocre or fair, as in moderate talent." That definition of the word is a far more apt one for describing Maine's junior senator.
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