Collins looks like winner in Maine Senate race

NY Times:

It is shaping up as one of the most challenging years that anyone can remember for Republican senators seeking re-election. But as other Republican incumbents elsewhere are battling for their political lives, Senator Susan Collins appears to be gliding toward a third term.

Recent voter polls showed Ms. Collins heading into the final stretch of the race with a double-digit lead over her Democratic challenger, Representative Tom Allen. Mr. Allen is a well-known and well-regarded congressman with a strong fund-raising record — a model candidate as far as the national Democrats are concerned, in a state that has voted for Democrats in the last four presidential elections.

But he just cannot seem to gain any traction against Ms. Collins, who has presented herself as a moderate with a long record of work on bipartisan legislation.

While other Republican incumbents have found themselves brutally assailed by Democrats as allies of President Bush, who is mortally unpopular, and have seen their poll numbers plummet as a result of the financial crisis, Ms. Collins has offered Republicans a very bright spot on an otherwise bleak political map.

“She is absolutely untouchable,” said Rebecca Fisher, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “It truly is a case where she has elevated above party. She is their senator, and they love her, and they don’t care about anyone else.

“They don’t care about Washington or how bad the Republican brand is or who is president. She has just been a star.”

In New Hampshire, next door, and in Oregon, across the country, two states that like Maine have shifted heavily toward the Democrats in recent years, the political landscape could not be more different.

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The Times ignores two other races where Republicans are winning with double digit leads. John Cornyn is leading by at least 10 in his reelection bid in Texas and the Republican who is running to replace Larry Craig in Idaho has a 20 point lead. The only way these races would get mentioned in the Times is if the races tightened which is unlikely. Cornyn is running an interesting race as a conservative Republican against a guy who is running on the Democrat Senate race talking points and failing badly. You would think that would be a story, but it is not one that fits the Times narrative in this election.