COLLINS FOR SENATE

Susan Collins deserves to be re-elected to the U.S. Senate because her extraordinary diligence has produced legislation that directly helps Maine and the rest of the nation. Her hard work, her effectiveness and her unshakable connection to this state show that the faith voters had in electing her to her first term in 1996 was well-placed.

Sen. Collins’ record of achievement is impressive. She broke the Senate logjam to get the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform passed. She passed consumer protections for sweepstakes and Internet-identification fraud. She was an author of the only major prescription-drug proposal to pass the Senate this year. On the issues of education, the environment, health care and rural development, she has proven herself to be a leader with the ability to build bipartisan support to pass important bills.

And what is true on a national scale is also true locally – just look at her work on subjects crucial to Maine, such as funding for research and development and transportation improvements. In the last week, Maine celebrated the opening of a high-tech wood-composites facility that is the direct result of the senator’s determined support of University of Maine research in this field. And earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Transportation bent to the senator’s persistence and agreed to conduct a comprehensive review, for the first time, of the U.S.-Canada infrastructure in this region, a major step in ending Maine’s harmful isolation because of inadequate roads, rails and ports.

The public sees only the results, but the work that went into these successes demonstrates an unsurpassed commitment to service.

That is the senator’s record to date, but many of her accomplishments occurred in a different world – a world in which the World Trade Center stood in New York and budget surpluses accumulated in Washington. What about for the next six years? This much is certain: A greater responsibility for world events and less federal money places an enormous burden on all senators to work with each other, to make party affiliation subservient to national duty.

The Democratic opponent, former state Senate majority leader Chellie Pingree, has disparaged Sen. Collins’ achievements by suggesting they were not significant enough, but the point is that they passed while bills of sound and fury died in committee. They passed because Sen. Collins sought out members of the opposing party, found areas of agreement on legislation and brought a majority of the Senate together rather than driving its members apart. More than ever, that ability is essential in Congress, and politicians who are divisive and absolutist, whether they arrive from the right or the left, will not succeed there.

Ms. Pingree properly has raised the question of Sen. Collins’ support for the president’s tax cut, which both then and in hindsight represented an expression of trust that it would soften the economy’s fall. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan says he is certain that it was the right move; nevertheless, three thoughts: Sen. Collins was a leader in lowering the overall size of the cut, she ensured that more of it went to the middle class than originally proposed and she has declared her willingness to review its future provisions given the changed circumstances. These are responsible answers on a difficult vote.

This race received national attention starting early last spring because it offered a first-term senator against a well-known state lawmaker – two top candidates and plenty of money. But Democrats miscalculated in a couple of areas. Their negative ads did not harm their opponent as they hoped, and they learned too late that Susan Collins is a tougher candidate with a better record and more Maine supporters than they had expected.

As this race enters its final week, it is the senator’s record of service – the bills she wrote, her attention to state issues, her leadership on national issues – that makes her stand out and makes her the best choice for Maine.