KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine — Former President George W. Bush on Friday backed Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine in his first public endorsement of the 2020 election cycle. [Cut] “She’s honest. She’s forthright. She brings dignity into a world that has gotten really ugly. The political world is uglier than I can ever remember it,” Bush said after he and his wife, Laura, had lunch with Collins at the family’s summer home overlooking the ocean. Bush called her “smart and capable,” “very influential” and “pretty darned independent.”