Dear Editor:

Although I have long respected Sen. Susan Collins, I am afraid she has lost her anchor. Without Olympia Snowe's strong brake on extremism, Sen. Collins seems to me to be slipping into the Tea Party view of vital issues.

I am writing to encourage voters to seriously consider Shenna Bellows' run for U.S. Senate, District 1. Her experience as executive director of the Maine chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has toughened her to the severity of the problems of injustice and inequality that we face today — unwarranted surveillance, corporations usurping the rights of individuals, all the obstacles that lie in the way of ordinary people to lift themselves from the blows of the recent economic recession.

For instance, the right wing's continual voting down an increased minimum wage while always voting for tax breaks that favor the wealthy.

Shenna Bellows is matter-of-fact and unsentimental in her positions, swayed by neither the extreme right nor the extreme left. I feel she will do well in Washington, D.C. We sorely need a new face in the U.S. Senate.

Joanna M. Cameron

Bruce F. Cameron

Edgecomb