COLUMN NEMITZ: Collins must be clear on war stance
2007-07-20
Source: Press Herald
Election Day is 473 days away, but already Maine Sen. Susan Collins' run for re-election is suffering from the "c" word.
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Consider the aftermath of Tuesday's all-night Senate debate about the war in Iraq. It ended Wednesday when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid failed to force a vote on a troop withdrawal that would start in 120 days and end by April 30.
Four Republican senators – Collins, fellow Mainer Olympia Snowe, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Gordon Smith of Oregon – crossed the aisle to vote against a looming GOP filibuster of the so-called "Levin-Reed amendment." (Its authors are Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island.)
Snowe, Hagel and Smith broke ranks for an obvious reason: They plan to support the Levin-Reed plan if it ever comes up for an actual vote.
Not so for Collins. In a news release issued as the Senate moved on to other business, she said she voted to stop the filibuster because "I believe that the Senate should have an opportunity to vote on all the policy alternatives in Iraq."
At the same time, Collins said she would have voted against Levin-Reed had it gone to an up-or-down vote.
In other words (with apologies to Sen. John Kerry), Collins voted for a vote on Levin-Reed – before she would have voted against it.
It's but one example of the widening gap between Collins and Snowe – who's not running for anything in 2008 – on how best to proceed in Iraq.
Snowe, in her floor speech Tuesday evening, could not have been clearer: "We can no longer afford to place American servicemen and women in harm's way to instill a peace that the Iraqis seem unwilling to seek for themselves."
And Collins? Not so clear.
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