saw a video of Collins when she was originally running for office. She promised to only do two terms or 12 years. The video was dated 1991. Politicians suck. Democrat and Republicans. Flakes admission that doing the right thing takes a back seat to keeping their job is sad no matter what party you are in.
Yeah. It's not for amateurs and requires making personal compromises with your ethics and values that not everyone would be capable of. Joe Manchin is a Democrat and voted for Kavanaugh because voters in West Virginia told him he may as well rent a U-Haul and empty his Senate office of personal belongings if he voted against him, since the people of his state were strongly behind the judge. That's politics.
But there's a time to open your mouth and rally your base, and to keep your mouth shut and focus on dealmaking in the background, like most politicians in DC do. She apparently didn't learn how to do this on her way up the political ladder. This was a freshman mistake, a feel good moment meant to make women cheer for her on Twitter but she blew it with men and with conservative women who urged Collins and a few other female Republicans to affirm Kavanaugh ASAP. She's an idiot. So is Gillibrand, Harris, Booker, and Blumenthal. They left the Senate committee hearing during the vote on taking it out of committee (that Grassley chaired) in the middle of his statement and went outside to hold a flash mob press conference to whine about the whole process and throw more insults on Kavanaugh, by now a hero of the Right. These guys aren't very good politicians, man. The elderly men on the other side of the aisle like Hatch and McConnell played their hand much better, because a week ago this judge was far from a sure thing.
