Recent good news for Democrat Shenna Bellows in the Maine US Senate race (per this local newspaper report) is:
Susan Collins blasted the recent campaign tactics of her Democratic opponent, Shenna Bellows, calling her rival's claims “ludicrous” ... [on Collins'] equal pay stance...
Even
this is good news:
Bellows website was changed Friday to say Collins “has voted for numerous budget bills that would have defunded family planning clinics and Planned Parenthood.” Abigail Collazo, Bellows’ deputy campaign manager, said the change was made after Planned Parenthood asked the campaign to be more specific about what votes were in question.
While Collins may have voted in support of Planned Parenthood when the issue stood alone, that doesn’t tell the whole story. ...broad spending cuts — including the defunding of Planned Parenthood and several provisions of Obamacare ... found their way into HR 1, the House’s 2011 appropriations bill to keep government running. It passed in the House, and in the Senate, Collins voted for it. Collazo said that was the vote in question ... “It’s what we’ve been saying all along: These votes matter,” she said.
Collins’ campaign downplayed the importance of the HR 1 vote, noting for example, that Planned Parenthood didn’t even consider that vote on their congressional scorecard the following year.
The reason that all the above is good news for Bellows is because:
• Bellows’ biggest challenge has been gaining name recognition and attention from Maine voters.
• Bellows’ second biggest challenge is getting voters to scrutinize Collins’ specific actions and inaction.
• On many issues, Bellows’ positions are more attractive than those of Collins, to those of Maine’s swing voters who are motivated to scrutinize them. This is especially true of the low-turnout demographics whose attention can be most boosted by media coverage and drama.
Colllins’ Plan A was to avoid talking about Bellows. (It is telling that Collins chose not to spend any of her millions negatively defining Bellows back when Bellows had virtually zero name recognition.)
Collins’ switch to Plan B is happening at the perfect time – for Bellows!
• Too late to pre-empt Bellows’ having defined herself as a nice, caring, knowledgeable, energetic, principled and professional.
• Too early to prevent Bellows from rebutting, from enabling voters to digest related issues, and from building on her recently recognized status as a serious threat.
Bellows has positioned herself to get full value from every dollar of late money that should flow to her (following DFA’s recent spending), as more Democrats focusing on control of the Senate realize that:
• Opening the eyes of Obama-supporting secular Maine swing voters (and potential late-registrants up to Election Day) to
specific votes of a personally popular Republican (who is has never been as popular as her predecessors Senators Snowe, Cohen or Mitchell)
...is relatively easy, in comparison with, for example:
• Persuading Obama-hating “religion-clinging”
Kentuckians, Georgians and West Virginians
to abandon long-held complete world-views.
Upon winning election, as Elizabeth Warren’s example shows, a Progressive Senator in a deepening Blue State is best able to
• promote Progressive legislation,
• lead and change rather than follow conventional wisdom, and
• gain the attention and support of the non-voting demographics whose mobilization would enable government by the people and for the people.
You know what to do...
11:02 AM PT: Collins is correct that the DC Village credits her for being a moderate on numerous issues, as she emphasized repeatedly in a radio interview here: http://news.mpbn.net/... (hat-tip to Illegitimi non carborundum).
DKos readers should appreciate that this says more about the DC village than it does about how much positive impact Collins' moderate gestures have.
The question that should decide this election is whether the failure of Collins' Plan A, and a homestretch following Bellows' Plan A, will lead to Mainers' appreciating that the DC Village has its own purposes in crediting Collins, and these do not include Mainers' best interests.