During a torrential afternoon rainstorm in 1994, I looked up from my desk in the Bagley Building and here was this totally bedraggled dripping wet woman with an outstretched hand. “Hi, I’m Susan Collins and I’m running for governor of Maine,” she said.

Twenty-three years later, alternately praised and criticized from both sides of the political aisle, Susan Collins is a household word operating on a national stage. She dominates the political landscape with unprecedented courage and unswerving loyalty to a constituency uniquely her own.