Background for next paragraph: I generally give a big oldrolleyes to people who say things like “Obama wants [secretly] to take away your guns” despite the fact he never said anything like this.
But if Maine is like the other largely rural New England states, support of gun rights is one of their most characteristically “conservative” positions, so hedging on support for the AWB is tantamount to being rabidly anti-gun, in this case 
[sneaks into Collins’ office and puts a tack on her chair]
Do people in Maine not understand that all R’s are “rabid dog R’s” in the sense that they are committed to voting for rabid dogs to run their legislative body? (Obviously that doesn’t apply to gubernatorial/presidential candidates.) I just don’t get it. Even Jesus Christ himself would be a rabid dog if he ran for a legislative post as a Republican today. I realize I’m laying it on a little thick here but do Mainiacs discuss the reality that they aren’t just voting for good old Sue Collins but also, and far more importantly as far as policy is concerned, Senate Republican Leader Mitch “Don’t Do Anything To Help The Country 'Cause That Helps Obama” McConnell?
I agree with 2sense. No matter how personally admirable, likable and respectable a senator is, if they have an ® after their name, they support insanity. I was a little broken up in 2008 when Gordon Smith ® lost to Jeff Merkley(D), because Smith was a very sane and respectable politician. His concession speech was legitimately sad because you could tell that the Senate was losing an admirable guy who really represented his constituents well. But in the end, even in 2008, the writing was on the wall that Republicans were all about being as evil as fucking possible, so I took some solace in that. And now of course I am legitimately glad that Merkley is representing my home state.
It doesn’t matter who leads the Senate. What matters is the vote totals. If Republicans win the Senate by one vote, yeah, Mitch McConnell(assuming he wins reelection) becomes leader, but what does that actually mean when he only has 48 rabid dogs he can count on?
Now this Bellows lady, she sounds like a rabid dog to me, at least in the sense of being unlikely to be a compromiser. When she’s on your side, it’s called principled. When she’s on the opposite side, it’s called “fanatical”.
No. Vote counts are only important if an issue has leadership support. Otherwise it won’t be coming to a vote. The leadership sets the agenda. They decide when and if a bill comes to the floor. They assign committee seats and so have great influence on what comes out of them in the first place.
It’s true that the Senate Majority Leader has less than the usual amount of control (nothing like that of the Speaker of the House) because tradition is important in that body and tends to empower individuals but that doesn’t change much from what I’ve outlined above. Committee seating is by seniority but the ML can remove people from important committees if they give him trouble. They can be senior somewhere less important. And there is the discharge petition which allows Senators to bring business to the floor over his objections but they are offered rarely because the odds are stacked so heavily against them working. Senate procedure is so ponderous that individual Senators can gum up the works in the face of a determined Majority Leader. When the ML is opposed, it’s almost hopeless. And even if a bill is passed over his objections it won’t be exactly the same as the House bill so the ML can still sabotage it because he appoints Senators to the conference committee.
So really, the R or the D is the most rational way to decide your vote for legislators. The only times I can see that the beliefs or character or whatever of the individual actually matter is if you really have no preference between one party or the other or if you are a single issue voter who doesn’t care what else happens to the country.
Deciding what comes up for a vote has little to do with the issue of who is and is not a rabid dog. Harry Reid has been the least compromising Senate Majority leader in memory, controlling both what comes up for a vote and what amendments shall be voted on with an iron fist. It’s hard to blame Senate Republicans in that environment.
McConnell is going to be much more friendly to the opposition should he take over. Put me on record for that one: If McConnell is majority leader, he will not fill up the amendment tree on every f’n bill like Reid does.
It had everything to do with it when Gingrich was Speaker!
And on what about McConnell’s record to date do you base that highly extraordinary and counterintutive assertion?
Either your memory is pretty damn short, or you know what “compromising” with “Fuck off to everything” would constitute.
Based on what experience exactly?
We all know about your predictions, adaher. 
Talks like a teenager, though - I think she has the same kind of vocal problem as Diane Rehm.
I’ve heard Collins speak in person a couple of times, and if you can get past her delivery, then yes, she’s entirely sane. The Northeast may be the last holdout of that breed of Republican, and even at that they’re getting voted out in favor of people who aren’t beholden to the Tealiban.
No longer good enough, now that the morons are firmly in control of the GOP. The minimum acceptable outcome in November is Democratic retention of the Senate. I wish I could feel sanguine about getting a lot more than the minimum, but I’ll tolerate the minimum, if that’s all that’s available.
I repeat.
He’s never been majority leader. However, BIll Frist has, and he filled the amendment tree 9 times. Reid has done it 58 times as of Dec. 2013:
Choosing to vote for a Democrat over a Republican regardless of which candidate is better on the rationalization that who they vote for for majority leader is more important is just that: a rationalization. Susan Collins is a better Senator than Bellows is likely to be. And only the “rabid dogs” of SMDB would consider Bellows’ vote for Reid(himself quite the dick, and likely a corrupt dick at that) to be more important.
While I was criticizing McConnell that really is beside the point. The point is that if the Democratic Party better represents your views then the rational move is to vote for the Democratic senate candidate over Collins no matter who that candidate is because who controls the Senate has far more bearing on policy than who becomes (or remains) Maine’s senator. Collins may be moderate for a Republican but if the GOP takes the Senate it will follow the hardline Republican stance.
Positions on the issues aren’t the only important thing. if they were, I’d be pleased as punch with the House right now. I’m not. What kind of people you put in matter too, and bad people ruin everything when they are on your side.
Part of being “bad people” is what their positions on the issues are, hmm? And, while they can impede progress, no, they don’t “ruin everything” to the point of what you’re doing becoming useless. For example, Lieberman definitely made Obamacare less than what it could be, but it’s still a major step forward for us all.
Withholding support from a party, even to the point of denigrating positions they and you both hold, just because of some imagined and groundless spite over what you perceive *personalities *to be :rolleyes:, is hardly what a responsible citizen does in a democratic republic.
But the voters in Maine don’t get to pick what kind of people get put into the Senate. This year they only get to cast judgement on 2 people, Bellows and Collins. I see your point but I don’t think it detracts from the observation that it’s irrational to vote against your preferred party no matter who the individual. One more good or bad person won’t have more effect on policy than who controls the legislative body.
But I also didn’t mean to start a complete digression. I’m interested in if the Bellows campaign could make use of this. I’d think they would have more success running against Mitch McConnell than Susan Collins.
Problem is, Bellows is going to be running against Barack Obama more than anyone else if she’s going to make the NSA her big issue.
That’s all right, plenty of Obama loyalists are unhappy about the NSA surveillance and would vote for anyone who ran against it.