This is a vivid illustration of why the few remaining "moderate" Republicans are such a plague. Their presence in Congress does nothing to "moderate" the crazies in their party- on the contrary, it enables them by strengthening their caucus. The voters who are being taken in by her need to get the memo. To that end she needs to be targeted bigtime by the DCCC, and the presidential nominee should also spend some time campaigning for Allen.

I don't care. She's still a member of the caucus that supports it. I liked Lincoln Chafee, but it's still much better to have Whitehouse in his seat.

Susan Collins has been very fortunate in her opponents in each of her elections. Joe Brennan was a tired candidate, two elections past his prime. Chellie Pingree has energy and good ideas, but ran as a one issue candidate (pharma reform), which Collins effectively neutralized simply by putting forth her own reform proposal. (Chellie also ran a poor tactical campaign, but is doing much better this time in her run for Allen's House seat). Whether true or not, Tom Allen is perceived as disengaged, and a relatively lazy campaigner / politician. He's been in Congress a long time, but hasn't really accomplished much of anything -- compare that to Mike Michaud (our other Rep) who is relatively junior but is viewed as a scrapper and a worker. Bottom line is, if we're going to beat Collins, we have to bring an A list candidate to oppose her, and Tom Allen just aint it.

Tom Allen's campaign, particularly in Maine's 2nd district (basically the northern half) has been all but invisible. Collins meanwhile has been using her incumbent status to attend local issues meetings (which get coverage in the local press) and appear on local news shows. It doesn't help either that Congressman Allen has been understandably pre-occupied with his wife's cancer diagnosis. All in all Collins looks quite safe. The one bright spot is the real chance that Pingree will win in the first district. As former President of Common Cause, she's well connected and a solid progressive, and it would seem has a bright political future.