And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN, the Axviles, with your

host, David Axelrod.

In a very polarized country, in a very polarized Washington, in a very polarized United States

Senate, Senator Susan Collins of Maine stands out as someone who has consistently over the years

been able to forge alliances across party lines. And she's done it again recently in trying to

fashion a compromise on the issue of guns and whether to ban people who are on the no-fly list

for terrorism from purchasing guns. I sat down in Washington with Senator Collins to talk about

that, her career, and the interesting state of the 2016 campaign.

Susan Collins, welcome. I'm getting ready for this podcast. I try and do a little research and I

started reading up on Carabou Maine, which is where you're from. And I guess your family was from

for many, many generations. How far back do your ties to Carabou go?

Well, my family actually were among the first white settlers of Carabou in the 1840s. So we

go back to the very beginning of the community. I'm sure there were Native Americans there as well.

But as far as white settlers, we were among the first. And close to how far from Canada are you?

Very, very close. So if you go in one direction, it's only a 20-minute ride. If you go another,

it's an hour ride. So I grew up in a community that had a very strong Franco-American,

French-Canadian influence. And when I was growing up, the big cities for us were in Canada. I had been

to Quebec before I'd ever been to Boston. Really? But the community itself was small.

Yes. When I was growing up, it was about 10,000 people. Unfortunately, with the 1994 closure of

a major air force base, it has shrunk considerably. That was a devastating blow to the area because it

took the largest and the most diverse community out of the aristic county.

A lot of the people I talked to have their own sort of stories about how they found their way

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