Sen Collins in need of fresh ideas

It has been a week since the acquittal of the Bangor Six, who were found “not guilty” after their criminal charges were heard in Penobscot County Superior Court. They were arrested while protesting the war in the Federal Building on March 7, 2007, because of their refusal to leave the building until they had seen Sen. Susan Collins and shown her pictures of Maine’s war dead.

After the trial, one juror said that “Collins needs to be more responsive to her constituents.” Did the juror believe that Collins does not understand how to respond to people or that she chooses not to care?

I don’t think so. Even after talking with Collins three times during the GOP Convention and listening to the concerns of the Bangor Six during their testimony, I think that Sen. Collins is in touch with people’s needs and is not entirely uncaring. She appears, though, to be out of touch with the power of ideas, particularly the ideas of those she represents.

The juror, a former lawyer, explained further, saying that Collins should “heed the words of Thomas Jefferson: When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property. This applies to her and to every elected public servant. Those individuals who serve in public office must resist the temptation to abuse the power, status and authority with which they are imbued and the attendant arrogance that so often prevails.”

Does Collins trust the power of ideas? Does she encourage and challenge the people she represents? Does she believe that we can lift ourselves up, raise our intellectual level and rise up to meet the challenges we face, think them through and solve them?

No. She didn’t get this message across at the convention. She relied instead on her status and adulation, which shouted out in every one of the thousands of “Susan” signs which carpeted the Augusta Civic Center this weekend.

She encouraged people to mindlessly chant her banal slogans, repeating, “six more years,” over and over.

Do these hypnotic slogans justify re-electing her for another term? She promised only two terms, not three, by the way. That broken promise would count as a “nontruth.” She’s still hanging around, with no new ideas.

I’m not expecting much in the way of compelling movement around ideas in her third election cycle. Ideas help people understand reality – and there is no sign that she has come close to understanding the reality of what a “no-exit strategy” policy will mean for the gas tanks, kitchen cupboards and medicine cabinets of people in Maine.

If the public really started paying attention to reality, they’d be getting very upset. They would be harder to control. Reality is scary, so Collins doesn’t debate ideas.

Collins doesn’t thoroughly discuss ideas with the public at large. She doesn’t get into the creative kinds of arguments where people find inspiration by arguing out the details.

Instead, what I saw when I met Collins was a person willing to repeat old slogans. She said to me, over and over, “I have to do what I think is right.” Slogans are not ideas, they’re just ways to drown out constructive conversation. They are bite-size sound bites, but they are not a replacement for thinking.

It’s actually an insult to dominate and buffalo people with slogans when they rightfully want our leaders to come up with fresh ideas. I am running for U.S. Senate partly because I want to understand the thinking that is going on in this country, the ideas that will help get us to a better place, not just keep us stuck.

Collins is stuck. People see it, but they are polite in Maine. I don’t think she is going to do well this fall, not because Tom Allen is going to start turning on the light bulb, but because I’m going to keep turning up and expecting her to originate some fresh thinking.

At the convention, I asked her to do some soul searching and pay attention to the people. Now I am expecting her to go one further – I want her to think our way out of our war policy, our economic crisis and the misdirection of our country. She was part of the leadership that got us here. Now it is her job to show how we will get out. My job, of course is to prove that I can do better. She is not making my job hard enough, not nearly.

Laurie Dobson of Kennebunkport is an independent candidate for the U.S. Senate.