Midweek Syllabus: June 9
Thinking About the Maine Senate Race
We’ll know sometime later today whether Graham Platner will be the Democratic nominee for Senate from Maine.
Why should we care?
If he wins the primary, heh will face off against longterm incumbent Republican Susan Collins, someone who had formerly been viewed as a moderate but has in recent years been a reliable vote for the Trump agenda.
The Collins seat is an important one, identified as a potential Democratic pick up and is viewed as integral for the party if it is going to flip the Senate to Democratic control.
Platner’s politics are progressive, based on the kind of “economic populism” I generally support.
His platform focuses on bringing down what he calls the “billionaire economy.” He advocates for universal healthcare, union protections and said he would push for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United, the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court case that allowed massive spending on political campaigns.
But Platner comes with significant baggage. His campaign has been rocked by scandals that might have torpedoed prior Democrats and raise some questions about his treatment of women and minority groups (See the USA Today story for a good overview of these).
Still, he has the support of progressive politicians like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ro Khanna, and his main competition for the nomination — Gov. Janet Mills —- was gaining n traction in the race before essentially suspending her campaign.
I’m ambivalent on this. More voices like Platner’s — he’s a combat veteran who opposes war, supports universal, single-payer healthcare, and opposes oligarchy and the machine — are needed in Washington, especially when faux populist oligarchs are running the place.
But the accusations have continued to pile up and are becoming harder and harder to downplay. Sourcing on many of the stories — including The New York Times’ piece on his “unsettling behavior,” which was pegged mostly to a conservative activist — is questionable at best.
There also is fear — which feels overblown and disconnected from the facts — that Platner could end up being another John Fetterman or Kirsten Sinema, erstwhile progressives who ended up burning the left for a variety of reasons.
I’m torn, but I don’t get a vote. What I can do is offer some of what I’ve been reading on the campaign, much of which does run counter to the national narrative. This is by design, as there are many pieces out there in the mainstream press that are echoing each other and amplifying the worst stories about Platner without adding anything to the discussion.
Consider these my antidote to the echo chamber.
Zeteo offers a good round up of what is at stake.
The Guardian reports on the final push in Maine.
Her is an opinion piece from Maine by a reporter who knew him in high school. It is incredibly detailed without telling the reader who to vote for.
From Journal of the Plague Years:
Daniel Barkhuff:
And Marc Cooper:
Cooper focuses on the problematic sourcing of most of the stories — which he calls “weak tea.” The New York Times story, presents him as “the worst misoginist (sic) since Jack The Ripper,” even though
There were no accusations of sexual abuse nor physical aggression of any import in the Times piece and now there’s some new accusations that he might have been sexting rather recently-- like 75% of American teenage boys and God knows by how many middle-aged bored-to-death insurance agents.
For Cooper, the character argument is rendered meaningless given that the Senate is “mired in a sea of muck, corruption, and hatred of poor people,” while Platner is “a veteran who has accepted his flaws, apologized, and spent the last number of years working with serious projects to benefit this most vulnerable of Americans.”
That’s a good overview of what’s at stake here.
Maine voter here, who after some hard thought is very comfortable with my vote for Platner.
1) Most of the national coverage is nonsense reflecting no context or understanding of Maine and its politics.
2) “Maybe he’ll be Fetterman” is the 2026 version of “But her emails.”
3) You want to look at an example of someone consumed by moral rot? Susan Collins.