In their efforts to rip into Rep. Jared Golden, Maine’s 2nd District Democrat, Republicans are assailing their own Sen. Susan Collins.

National Republican Congressional Committee Eastern Regional Press Secretary Maureen O’Toole lashed into Golden for a vote last week “to protect funding for radical nonsense” and insisted voters were “sick and tired of seeing their money bankroll Golden’s lunacy.”

The criticism focused on Rep. Golden’s resistance to a measure to reverse billions in congressional appropriations — a bill also opposed by Sen. Collins.

It’s part of what I see as a pattern by the NRCC. On behalf of the committee, O’Toole has more than once slammed Golden for voting exactly the same way as Collins, a Republican who has represented Maine since President Bill Clinton sat in the White House.

It follows that every word of criticism levied at Golden for his position applies with equal force to the stance by Collins — even if it’s not included in the press release.

When Golden opposed President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” this month, O’Toole said he “cast the most reckless vote of his career by siding with the radical left and turning his back on hardworking Mainers.” If Golden cast a “reckless vote” that would “destroy Maine manufacturing,” as O’Toole said, then surely so did Collins.

O’Toole said that, by standing against the measure, Golden voted to raise taxes by 22%, “the highest tax hike in American history.” Again, by that standard, so did Collins.

If O’Toole is right about Golden, Collins also betrayed Mainers when she, too, “voted to raise taxes, kill jobs and gut national security.”

“Voters won’t forget it, not now, not next November,” O’Toole said.

I hope they won’t. There’s a reason that both of Maine’s senators and each of its members of the U.S. House voted against the bill, which undermined the health care and finances of lower-income Americans to put a whole lot more money in the pockets of the wealthy.

That it also added trillions to a growing national debt is another problem, one reason that, in a rare lucid moment, Elon Musk called it a “disgusting abomination.”

Sen. Angus King, who is typically a pretty mellow guy, was so upset that his GOP colleagues rammed through the measure that he loudly told them, “Shame on you guys. That was the most disgusting vote I’ve ever seen in my life.”

The reality of slim majorities in both chambers of Congress should have created an incentive to work across the aisle. Maine’s delegation was, as usual, willing to try … but Washington isn’t too keen on compromise these days.

The real question isn’t why Collins, Golden, King and Rep. Chellie Pingree, a 1st District Democrat, sometimes share the same stance on bad bills.

The more interesting question is this: How come Collins, with all her seniority and her powerful perch as Appropriations Committee chair, rarely manages to block or revise awful pieces of legislation? Within her caucus, she seems to have the persuasive powers of a gnat.

When Democrats narrowly held the Senate, after all, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin pummeled all sorts of bills his party wanted — and, taking us full circle, wound up mentoring Golden along the way. Collins has the capacity to follow Manchin’s example. It would be nice to see her try.