Maine — The End of an Era, and Those Not Meant by the Push
Tarek Abou Ghazala — Editor
The oldest thing to fall that night was not a seat but a career
The oldest thing to fall that night was not a seat but a career. The Republican senator Susan Collins conceded defeat to the Democrat Troy Jackson, closing a congressional career of nearly thirty years.
Collins was known as one of the last Senate Republicans willing at times to hold herself apart from her party's prevailing line. She conceded before some networks had formally called the race.
We use the verse from al-Anfāl for the generality with which a trial lands, not to designate a wrongdoer and a wronged party; it is not this magazine's business to audit a politician's record. What is meant is the structural proposition it states: when disturbance becomes general, it does not select its victims.
This is the harshest face of the law, and on the surface the least just: a general wave carries off those who stood in its path along with those who made it. Collins was known for breaking with her party's leadership on occasion, and that did not shelter her once the vote had become a vote on the label rather than on the record.
There is a lesson here for anyone who supposes that moderation alone is sufficient armour: as polarisation sharpens, the space for moderates narrows from both sides at once — their own party charges them with hesitancy, and their opponents do not believe them. This is a description of what happens, not praise of it or a call to it.
Even so, the close of the career was what the instrument described in the editorial requires: she conceded before the networks obliged her to.
Limits of this reading
- Attributing her defeat to the wave alone is a plausible explanation and no more; the state has its own local factors, and her challenger ran a campaign of his own.
- The concession preceded some networks' calls, so the final figures may differ from what was known at the time of writing.
- This article does not assess the senator's record or her successor's programme, and passes no judgement on either.