Kissing cousins: Maine Dem Senate nominee rebukes GOP's Collins for 'attacking my personal life'

Troy Jackson didn't get "attacked." Someone read a fact off his own family tree back to him and he called it a hit job. That's the story here, and it's a small but telling one about how thin-skinned candidates get when the campaign narrative slips outside their control.

Collins is running against a guy whose kids' mother is his second cousin. That's not an insinuation, it's a genealogical fact he apparently shared himself at some point, or it wouldn't be public. Whether it's fair game for a Senate race is a separate question from whether it's true. Jackson's response wasn't "here's the context" or "here's why that's irrelevant to my ability to legislate." It was to frame accurate information as a personal attack on his family, which is the modern political move of choice when you don't like where a conversation is headed. Say "attack," say "personal," and hope the fact underneath gets lost in the outrage.

Maine voters can decide for themselves whether this matters to them. Plenty of rural families have complicated trees and nobody thinks that disqualifies a person from public office. But there's something worth noticing in a candidate who reaches for victimhood language this fast, this early, over something this minor. If a family history comment sends him into a defensive crouch, it's fair to wonder how he handles actual scrutiny once the campaign gets hard, which it will, because Collins isn't going anywhere quietly.

We'd rather see candidates just answer the question and move on. Jackson had an easy out here: shrug, say "yep, small towns," and talk about jobs or the border or anything voters actually care about. Instead he handed Collins a second news cycle for free.