Senator Susan Collins Asks Supporters For Gas Money After Voting For The War That Made Gas Expensive

Campaigns run on money, and now that Maine Senator Susan Collins is no longer cruising toward an easy re-election, she needs donations. Which means begging her supporters for cash. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Fundraising is perfectly normal. But the Daily Beast reports the Republican senator recently sent out a campaign email asking those supporters to help her buy gas for her upcoming statewide tour. You know, the same gas that's only expensive because Republicans started a war with Iran that she voted for.

"Team Collins is officially hitting the road!" the email's first line reads, before going on to explain the campaign's plans for a bus tour that will start in Kittery and end in Madawaska. "Organizing a tour of this scale takes a lot of coordination, enthusiasm, and quite literally fuel. Will you chip in just $5 today to help us put gas in the tank and keep our team moving forward?" it continued, adding, "Every dollar goes directly toward keeping our team on the road, our events fully stocked, and our bus powered from stop to stop." 

Odds are, the Collins campaign isn't so broke that she literally doesn't have gas money for her bus. Not after she reported $11 million cash on hand at the end of June. But people tend to be more generous when they can imagine their money buying something tangible. In a vacuum, it's a fairly average fundraising email that touches on a salient issue for a lot of voters. Outside of that hypothetical vacuum, however, gas prices are only such a salient issue because the president — who she's voted with 95% of the time — started a senseless war with Iran. It's so tone-deaf, you might have a hard time believing Collins is only in her 70s. 

Days after Trump unilaterally decided to attack Iran, Senator Tim Kaine introduced the Iran War Powers Resolution in the Senate that would have forced Trump to make his case to Congress if he wanted to continue the war. Senator Collins voted against it and issued a statement that said, "Passing this resolution now would send the wrong message to Iran and to our troops. At this juncture, providing unequivocal support to our service members is critically important, as is ongoing consultation by the Administration with Congress."

Collins had the opportunity to stand up to Trump and chose to support his war to make gas expensive instead. Then again, that was a vote that would have mattered, and anyone who's familiar with Senator Collins knows that's not her style. Instead, she prefers to break with her party when her vote no longer matters. By the time Collins voted in favor of an anti-war resolution that didn't pass, the White House had already decided the temporary ceasefire agreement meant the war was over anyway. Officially, the current war is brand new and completely different from the old war.

Is Collins mad the White House is playing games with Congress? Check the press releases on her website, and you won't find one calling for an actual end to the war. Nope. She can't worry about the war with Iran right now. Not when she has an election to win. But the war she voted for did make gas expensive, and she's got a lot of driving ahead of her. You don't mind chipping in for a few gallons of expensive gas now, do you?