Collins in re her years as a Senator has a lifetime score of 43% from the American Conservative Union, the lowest of any Republican Senator. At the time she landed her first staff job on Capitol Hill (1975), about 1/3 of the Senate Republican caucus had been given the same rating or a lower rating by the American Conservative Union (on the basis of their votes recorded over the four calendar years running from the beginning of 1972 to the end of 1975). That bloc included Hugh Scott, who led the Senate Republican caucus.

She isn’t all that special.

Your country, America, was never what you thought it was. Because the people in it did not serve the people. You served the government, as slaves.,

That was the first thing I noticed. A little ambiguity in the phrasing to slip things by the unwary.

“I think to Collins, doing anything she can do to protect abortion is paramount.” – Chases Eagles

Ambiguity reigns.
https://www.salon.com/2019/06/06/pro-choice-susan-collins-has-voted-to-confirm-32-anti-abortion-trump-judges/

So does hypocrisy.
https://thefederalist.com/2020/09/23/both-are-in-the-same-church-but-media-love-joe-bidens-faith-and-hate-amy-coney-barretts/

The main thing Collins has done is contribute to the number of GOP senators going to make up a Senate majority and therefore to allow the GOP to control the Senate at times. Ordinarily, that helps to get judges through even when the House is Democrat, such as for the entire Trump administration. And I really think that without Collins, Maine would have elected a Democrat senator in her place long ago. Until now, she’s been a shoo-in in Maine.

Collins is the only New England Republican in the current Congress. She definitely has often voted with the Democrats, although apparently according to her Wiki page during the Trump administration she’s voted with the Republicans more often than previously.

It is not and for a long time has not been a state of hardy, self-sufficient people living off sea and land.

Maine’s other Senator, of whom no one ever hears anything, is an ex-gov., King by name, who like Bernie is not a Democrat but of course caucuses and votes with them.

Maine is not a state for political inspiration. It is a part of New England, the land of illiberal libs. Where Neo is surrounded, nay, inundated.

Can anyone name any good thing Collins has done as Senator other than her objection to Kavanaugh’s treatment? Which startled many because it was so un-Collins. Is she truly a functional member of the GOP?

I agree with you a number of these characters are like Dianne Feinstein and insist on staying until they’re approaching 90. In re Maine:

Olympia Snowe: left Congress at age 65
John Baldacci: left Congress at age 48; left public office at age 55
Wm Cohen: left Congress at age 56, left public office at age 60
George Mitchell: left Congress at age 61; last turn at public office at age 77
Joseph Brennan: left Congress at age 56; last turn at public office at age 78
John McKiernan: left Congress at age 38; left public office at age 46.
Edmund Muskie: left Congress at age 66, last turn at public office at age 73

These are the voluntary retirements. Others were bounced out by voters (as may happen to Collins).