Maria Padian is a novelist and freelance writer who lives in Brunswick. She has previously worked as a news reporter and a congressional press secretary.
Something surprised me this month as I’ve been knocking on doors and doing some political canvassing: There are a lot of older women who plan to vote for both Hannah Pingree and Sen. Susan Collins.
As a Medicare-eligible female myself, I’ll confess: this struck me as some profound cognitive dissonance; these two candidates are very different. But despite my impulse to exclaim, “Seriously?” at my fellow women of a certain age, I remembered that good canvassing includes listening. So I asked them to … explain.
Their reasons were remarkably personal.
Regarding Pingree, a Democrat running for governor in Maine, many said, “Oh, I love Hannah.” Like she’s the smart daughter we’re super proud of.
Regarding Collins, the five-term incumbent Republican running for U.S. Senate, they spoke as if she were a trusted friend or sister. “She saved my job,” one said. “She understands us,” said another. “She’s a real Mainer.”
Here’s the thing: those gals have been voting for Collins for decades. They hold fast to the Susan they knew 20-plus years ago, who molded herself as a moderate. It didn’t matter if I pointed out that the current Susan has abandoned those moderate impulses. That today’s Susan votes with President Trump 96% of the time and marches lock-step with the MAGA-aligned values of a GOP that past Maine Republican women like Margaret Chase Smith would not recognize today.
I realized I wasn’t going to change their minds at the front stoop. But I did say this: Your vote is not a Valentine. It’s a calculated chess move.
Because in the game we’re playing right now, “our senator” (that’s the logo on the Collins’ campaign bus) is no friend. She’s no sister. She’s no powerful chess queen, wielding her influence as chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Instead, she’s played the past two years like an ineffective pawn. And her repeated caving to Trump has hurt Maine.
Someone who understands Mainers would know that bombing Iran would disrupt world oil prices and leave us out in the cold. So this winter, thank Susan Collins when we pay 75% more for heating oil. She voted repeatedly to support this now-forever war, back when Trump called it a military “action” that would last six weeks. Decades worth of past presidents from both parties knew better. Collins knew better.
Someone who cares about Maine jobs and Mainers’ health wouldn’t support Trump’s “big,
beautiful bill,” which Collins voted to advance.
That bill’s devastating Medicaid cuts will not only shutter hundreds of hospitals nationwide, it’s projected to eliminate Medicaid for 31,000 Mainers and, according to the Maine Center for Economic Policy, might close four hospitals in Maine, resulting in the loss of tens of million in wages.
Speaking of health: measles is back. It was declared “eliminated” in U.S. in 2000, but so far this year we’re at more than 4,000 cases. All thanks to the anti-vaccination misinformation spread by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom “our senator” voted to confirm.
With all due respect to my fellow senior women: chess, like democracy, is a long game. And sometimes, winning requires being strategic — and retiring a piece.