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Senators Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman hold a press conference on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is part of an endangered species: A New England Republican serving in Congress.

There’s just two of them among the 33 Senate and House members representing the region’s six states — Collins and Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. Ayotte, swept into office in the 2010 Republican wave, won’t face voters again until 2016. Collins, first elected in 1996 — a time when it wasn’t quite so lonely for her party in her neck of the Maine woods – is up for a fourth term next year.

A lesser politician might already be exploring second careers. But Collins begins the campaign cycle a strong favorite for re-election, and an Associated Press story this week summing up her current stands on hot-button issues offered — in a single paragraph — ample evidence of her adroitness:

“She calls herself `a champion’ on equal rights for gays and lesbians but doesn’t openly support gay marriage. She favors changes to the nation’s immigration system but so far declines to endorse a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who live in the country illegally. And she wants to crack down on illegal gun trafficking, but warns that universal background checks might impose unnecessary burdens on some gun owners.”

Talk about threading the political needle.

Of course, some might call it dodging hard choices.

Regardless, it works for Collins, 60.

As Mike Cuzzi, a Maine Democratic strategist, recently told the National Journal, Collins’ constituents “appreciate” that she “is more of a pragmatic Republican and a little more centrist than the majority of her party.”

As that one paragraph makes so clear.

Original post is Maine’s Susan Collins Hones Formula for Political Survival by Political Capital.

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Ashley Judd, center, attends the final day of the Democratic National Convention at Time Warner Cable Arena on September 6, 2012 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Democrats have been here before — confronting a numbers game that undercuts their bid to keep a Senate majority. They confounded such odds in 2012, but by necessity their sigh of relief was brief. The Democrats face a similar scenario in the 2014 midterms, and later today the story-line gets a little bleaker for the party.

South Dakotan Tim Johnson, a successful Democrat in a state that since 1940 has voted Republican in every presidential election save Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 landslide, is expected to announce that he won’t seek a fourth Senate term.

Even with Johnson – who remains hampered by the effects of a 2006 brain hemorrhage — on the ticket, the seat shaped up as a tough Democratic hold. Now that challenge is heightened, especially with former Gov. Mike Rounds having already announced he will seek the Republican Senate nomination.

So let’s count South Dakota as a likely Republican pickup in 2014, along with West Virginia, where Democrat Jay Rockefeller has decided not to seek re-election. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito gives Republicans a strong contender to replace Rockefeller in a state where President Barack Obama carried barely a third of the vote last November.

With those two gains, Republicans will need to net four more seats to win back the Senate they lost in the 2006 election. A daunting task, but definitely doable, given the electoral math.

Democrats have 19 other seats to defend next year — and as in South Dakota and West Virginia,  five of them are in states that Republican Mitt Romney carried against Obama. In each of those — Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana and North Carolina — the Democratic incumbents are wily politicians. But each will have their work cut out for them, and as of now none are heavy favorites.

An eighth clearly vulnerable Democratic seat is in Iowa, a race that opened up when party mainstay Tom Harkin decided not to seek a sixth term. As Bloomberg’s John McCormick recently detailed, the campaign’s initial skirmish will be closely watched for what it reveals about conflicts within the Republican Party. Depending on what happens among the state’s Republicans, the battle to replace Harkin may emege as one of the nation’s most fiercely fought contests.

Two other potential problem spots loom for Democrats — Michigan, where Democrat Carl Levin’s decision to retire means Republicans can legitimately contemplate capturing the open seat, and Minnesota, where Republicans are anxious to send Democrat Al Franken (a victor by barely 300 votes six years ago) back to his comedic roots.

All told,  that gives Democrats 10 seats to worry about.

The comparable list for Republicans, among the 14 seats they are defending?

At best, as of now, one.

Barring unforseen political twists, Republicans seem assured of maintaining their seats in the party strongholds of Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska (an open seat), Oklahoma, South Carolina (where both senators will be on the ballot), Tennessee and Wyoming.

One day, the burgeoning Latino population could turn Texas into a swing state, ripe for competitive races. But that day remains still a way’s off as John Cornyn, the Senate’s second-ranking Republican, seeks re-election next year.

Democrats may also muse about taking out Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, especially if actress Ashley Judd decides to take him on. A Judd candidacy would enliven the midterm campaign, but it’s hard to see the venerable McConnell losing his starring role in a state Romney carried with more than 60 percent of the vote.

Susan Collins of Maine stands as the oddity among her Republican Senate colleagues — she’s the only one up for re-election next year in a state that Obama won last year. It’s also a state that charts its own course, electing independent (though Democrat-leaning) Angus King as its other senator in 2012. But Collins, after easily surviving the 2008 Democratic wave, isn’t likely to lose her bid for a fourth term.

Georgia, in the wake of Saxby Chambliss’ decision to step down at the end of his current term, stands as the sole seat Republicans may have to break a sweat to retain. And that prospect hinges on who the party tabs as its standard-bearer.

Those interested include four members of the state’s contingent of Republican House members, a group the Hill newspaper aptly described as “conservative, more conservative and most conservative.”

Paul Broun, the congressman to whom many would apply the “most conservative” label, already has announced his intention to seek the Chambliss seat. And that could give the Democrats their shot.

Broun has a rich history of making provocative comments, including widely quoted remarks in a speech late last year. A trained physician and member of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, he said the theories of evolution and the “Big Bang” creation of Earth were among “lies straight from the pit of Hell.”

To punctuate his point, he also estimated Earth’s age as “about 9,000 years old.”

Amid the dark clouds hovering over the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, a Broun nomination would be greeted by its staff as a ray of sunshine.

Original post is 2014 Senate Primer: Why Democrats Have to Worry by Political Capital.

Photograph by Melina Mara/The Washington Post via Getty Images

In a private Senator's Only room in the Capitol, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), center, is surrounded by her fellow women Senators, Senators Lisa Murkowski (I-AK), Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Claire McCaskill (D-MS), in celebration of her record years of service as the longest serving female lawmaker in Congress, on March 20, 2012.

If the women of the House were in charge, this cliff business would be taken care of already.

That’s the message from the women of the Senate — with a record-setting 20 ready to take office in January — who sat down for an interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyer.

“I think if we were in charge of the Senate and of the administration that we would have a budget deal by now,” Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said in the interview airing Jan. 3, the first day of the new session of Congress, on “World News with Diane Sawyer.”

Sawyer met today with the historic class of female senators of the 113^th Congress – 16 Democrats, four Republicans.

They understand the difference between confrontation and compromise, Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, says in the interview.  Women are “less confrontational and more collaborative” – both traits necessary to avert the so-called fiscal cliff, she says.  “Having us in the room – and I think – you know, all of us, not only do we want to work in a bipartisan way, we do it.”

Original post is Women Would Have Fixed It By Now — Senate’s Female Class of ’12 Says by Political Capital.

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U.S. Senate Michael Bennet claims victory in the midterm elections in Denver's City Park on Nov. 3, 2010 in Denver.

Here’s one word that doesn’t describe Michael Bennet’s new job as chairman of the Senate Democrats’ campaign organization:

Easy.

Bennet, a Colorado Democrat announced today as the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, is taking over an organization that has 20 of its members up for re-election in 2014 compared to 13 Republicans.

Democrats will defend their expanded Senate majority, set to be 55-45 when the 113^th Congress convenes next month, at the midpoint of President Barack Obama’s second term. In midterm elections, the party controlling the White House usually loses ground in Congress, partly because more of the opposition shows up in a lower-turnout year.

Of the 13 Republicans whose terms expire at the end of 2014, only Susan Collins of Maine represents a state that voted for Obama on Nov. 6. And she beat a Democratic congressman in 2008, a good Democratic year, with 61 percent of the vote.

Seven Democrats up for re-election in 2014 represent states carried by Mitt Romney, including Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Tim Johnson of South Dakota, who have already drawn top-flight Republican opponents.

The outcomes will depend on a range of factors that are difficult to predict, including the national political environment, Obama’s approval rating, candidate recruitment and fundraising. Republicans would need to make a net gain of six seats to win an outright majority for the first time since the 2004 election.

And there will be unexpected twists and turns over the next 23 months, as the 2012 Senate campaign showed. Republicans seemed to be in a strong position at the end of the 2010 campaign, when Obama had mediocre approval ratings and Democrats faced the unwelcome prospect of defending 23 Senate seats on 2012 ballots compared to just 10 for Republicans.

Yet Democrats were aided by Republican setbacks including the unexpected retirement of Olympia Snowe of Maine, the defeat of Richard Lugar in an Indiana primary and self-inflicted wounds by Richard Mourdock in Indiana and Todd Akin in Missouri.

Strong campaigns by Democrats in Romney-friendly states, including Sen. Jon Tester in Montana and Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota, also helped Democrats hold on to 22 of their 23 seats — the most successful holds by a party in Senate elections since 1964.

Original post is What Colorado’s Bennet Faces as Senate Democratic Campaign Head by Political Capital.

Photograph by Win McNamee/Getty Images

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, leaves the Capitol after meeting with members of the senate on Nov. 28, 2012 in Washington.

U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice was still on Capitol Hill today, still explaining her statements about the Sept. 11 Benghazi attack, and still not allaying Republican lawmakers’ doubts.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said she was “very troubled” after an hour-long meeting with Rice this morning.

“I still have many questions,” Collins told reporters, echoing statements made by Senators John McCain, Kelly Ayotte and Lindsey Graham after they met with Rice Tuesday, as Bloomberg reported. Republicans have said Rice misled Americans when, on Sept. 16 television talk shows, she falsely said the Benghazi attack resulted from a “spontaneous” demonstration against an anti-Islam video that militants then “hijacked.”

Collins, the top Republican on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said she was particularly concerned that history had seemed to repeat itself in the Benghazi attack.

“We seem not to have learned from the 1998 bombings of two of our embassies in Africa at the time when Ambassador Rice was the assistant secretary for African affairs,” Collins said. “What troubles me so much is the Benghazi attack in many ways echoes those attacks.”

Both the 1998 and 2012 attacks came without warning and after additional security had been requested in the areas, Collins said.

Despite her criticism, Collins did not rule out Rice as a possible candidate to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when asked by reporters.

“I would need to have additional information before I could support her nomination,” said Collins, who is considered less partisan and polarizing than McCain, Graham and Ayotte.

When pressed on the topic, Collins clarified her opinion on the coming appointment.

“I think John Kerry would be an excellent appointment and would be easily confirmed by his colleagues,” she said.

Original post is Rice Remains in Question: Collins ‘Very Troubled’ After Meeting by Political Capital.

Independent Senator-elect Angus King from Maine. Photograph by Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo

Senator-elect Angus King of Maine says probably will decide which party to caucus with in time to vote in tomorrow’s congressional leadership elections.

“I will probably have some comment for you some time tomorrow,” King, an independent who beat a Republican and a Democrat to replace retiring Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, told reporters today.

King, a former governor who met this morning with Maine’s other Republican senator, Susan Collins, on Capitol Hill, said his decision would not amount to ” building a wall between myself and the other party,”

“Whichever decision I make, I am not declaring opposition or inability to work with or unwillingness to work with members of the other party,” he said.

Members of both parties have said they expect King to caucus with Democrats, who retained their Senate majority in last week’s election and will control 55 seats if King joins their caucus.

Still, Collins said she hoped King would align himself with Republicans.

“But regardless, I am confident that he will not be an automatic vote for either caucus and instead will look at the issues on their merits and will attempt to reach across the aisle regardless of which side of the aisle he’s sitting on,” she said.

Original post is King’s Caucus Call: Tomorrow by Political Capital.