Give political thugs the bum’s rush

When Maine voters elected Angus King as governor in 1995 they also elected a new Republican majority to the Maine Senate. I heard state Sen. Beverly Bustin — who was, at the time, a senate Democrat leader — tell a group of people gathered in Maine’s State House that the new GOP senate majority was an aberration, a flaw in the electoral process. The election that year was clearly a case of mistaken identity.

Maine voters thought the Maine Senate should have a majority of members who weren’t Democrats. Senator Bustin believed Maine voters were wrong. She believed, in the grand scheme of things, Democrats were the rightful majority.

The state senator said nothing along the lines of, “Maine voters have spoken. We respect their choices and we look forward to finding common ground with Maine’s new Independent Governor and Republican Senate Majority.” No, Senator Bustin vowed that in two years Democrats would regain their rightful place as Maine’s governing majority. Until then, Democrats had to hold the line against this rogue, short-lived GOP senate majority.

Senator Bustin was startling. Having worked as a GOP legislative staffer since late 1989, 1995 was the first time Republicans were the majority in either the Maine Senate or Maine House of Representatives. Democrats’ unhappiness with the election results made sense. Democrats looking at what went wrong in preparation for the next election made sense too. But that’s not what I was hearing from Bustin’s lips or seeing in her eyes. I was seeing and hearing vengefulness.

As personal defining moments sometimes do, the Sen. Bustin State House incident came to mind this week after many disgraceful moments during the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearing for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Just when it seemed the confirmation hearing was over, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Sen. Dianne Feinstein gave an 11th hour “Oh, by the way….” mention of what we now know as Christine Blasey Ford’s letter alleging she was sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh 35 years ago when they both were in high school.

Senator Feinstein had Dr. Ford’s allegation letter in July — three months. “[Feinstein] made no attempt to ask Kavanaugh about them, even in closed session. If she believed the allegations were true or credible, she should have acted on them. If she didn’t — as has been reported — going public as a desperate ploy to derail or delay his confirmation is an act of grotesque cynicism…,” writes National Review Senior Editor Jonah Goldberg.

Consider the treatment by Kavanaugh opponents to U.S. Sen. Susan Collins since Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. “A crowdfunding website is trying to strong-arm [Collins] by giving more than $1 million to her 2020 opponent — unless she opposes Judge Kavanaugh,” notes a 9/11/18 Wall Street Journal editorial.

According to the Boston Globe 9/09/18, “Collins’s office has received 3,000 clothes hangers…in an apparent reference to…Roe v. Wade…. One caller wished rape on a junior staffer, and…Collins’s office received a 3-foot-long phallic cardboard cutout labeled with an expletive.”

There is a point at which it is irresponsible, bordering on dangerous, to dismiss escalating pathological actions of elected officials as “heat of the moment” acts by otherwise good people. Since the President’s 1/20/17 inauguration, the nation is seeing more than enough violence and pathological behavior stemming from the Left acting as if they are America’s rightful governing majority, with authority to stop or destroy anyone who thinks otherwise.

I can’t predict how Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination will end. But, enough is enough. The Left thugs in office, and their thug activist allies, need to be voted out, and never re-elected.

Scott K. Fish has served as a communications staffer for Maine Senate and House Republican caucuses, and was communications director for Senate President Kevin Raye. He founded and edited AsMaineGoes.com and served as director of communications/public relations for Maine’s Department of Corrections until 2015. He is now using his communications skills to serve clients in the private sector.