Half the homes in Maine heat with oil. I’d never have guessed it was that high, and it makes the Susan Collins story a good example of how a foreign war reaches a Senate race. Nobody in Augusta voted on the Strait of Hormuz. But a furnace in Aroostook County responds to it, and in October a furnace is the most political appliance in the state.

Look at what the war has done to Collins, and to the diesel truckers from last week. Her opponents don’t need a position on Iran. They only need an invoice. Collins is one of the few Republicans who has spent years building a brand on being separate from her party, and the price of oil doesn’t care about brands. It lands on her because she holds the seat.

The other piece I keep turning over is the Times line that dispirited Republicans may stay home, “bringing a Democratic surge without many conversions.” That is a very specific kind of wave. It’s not persuasion, it’s attrition. It would mean Democrats winning with the same number of supporters they have now, and it would give them a Congress with a mandate nobody quite signed.

Which matters later. A majority built on the other side’s absence is a fragile thing to govern from, and it tends to produce its own correction.

The Lincoln is coming home after eleven months, by the way, with food shortages and no days off. I’d like to know how many voters in Maine know someone on that ship. That number might matter more than any poll.

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