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(WASHINGTON) – Susan Rice, National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama, announced Sunday that she would decide, after mid-term elections next month, whether she would run for the Senate from Maine in 2020 and would try to overthrow Republican Senator Susan Collins.
Collins has cast a decisive vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh at the Supreme Court, deeply disappointing for opponents of his appointment.
Speaking in New York at the New Yorker Festival, Rice said that Collins "put the party and politics ahead of its own principles" of supporting equal rights and legalized abortion . "I think that in a way that I really regret to say, she has betrayed women across the country," Rice said.
Kavanaugh's confirmation was blocked by accusations of sexual misconduct while he was in high school and at university, but Collins and others said he was convinced by his energetic denials and an additional report from the FBI yielding no evidence corroborating these claims.
"What moved me … is a feeling of indignation and frustration: a person who pretends to be a moderate centrist and a person who cares about the equal rights and rights of LGBT people, of Roe v Wade and all that stuff, could very politically decide to vote for Kavanaugh but do it in a way that does not take into account the concerns of many Americans and many Mainers, "Rice said. "So it's on this basis that I decided to think about it."
Kavanaugh's move to the Supreme Court now gives the Conservatives an active majority that could curtail abortion rights and end the expansion of LGBT rights.
Rice, a Democrat, had hinted her interest in a Senate held in a tweet of a word Friday, answering "me" to an open question about who wanted to run against Collins. She then seemed to go back, saying that she was "making no announcement".
Collins questioned Rice's connection with Maine, saying Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that, although Rice's family had her home in Maine, "she does not live not in the state of Maine ". Everybody knows it."
Rice, however, said that "her ties to Maine were deep and deep." When she appeared on Sunday, she described the arrival of her grandparents in Jamaica in 1912, her annual summer visits that began in childhood and the house she now owns. "In the last 20 years, I've owned a home in the state of Maine, so it's not completely crazy," she said.
Collins returned to Maine late Saturday after Kavanaugh was sworn in. She said Sunday that, despite the presence of protesters outside her home in Bangor, Mainers' response was "extremely positive".
People angry at his vote have vowed to make him pay a political price. A crowdsourcing group claims to have pledged more than $ 3 million for its opponent in 2020.
Rice, who also served as United States ambassador to the United Nations to Obama, said he appreciated the excitement of his potential, but said people angry with Kavanaugh should focus on the mid-term elections.
"At the end of the day, I'm going to think about it after the mid-term exams," she said.
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