As Maine Goes...

 The Senate campaign in Maine for the 2026 year is a critical one. Maine is a Blue state - though somewhat moderate for New England, in the sense that there are very liberal places and some very conservative places, but the Blue wins out.  Except in the Senate, where Susan Collins has somehow held on to her office, despite being rhetorically out of touch with the national GOP. Collins, like Lisa Murkowski, knows better than to support Trump fully, but also knows the criticisms of him have to be muted.

Collins is up for reelection next fall, and it represents arguably the best chance to flip a Red seat Blue. North Carolina is another opportunity, because Democrats were able to recruit Roy Cooper, the popular former governor. Cooper is 68, but that's practically a spring chicken by Senate standards. Six years of Roy Cooper is an objectively good thing. 

The "Roy Cooper" of Maine would seem to be Janet Mills, the combative governor who famously told Trump, "I'll see you in court." 

Mills is 77. That's five years older than Collins. 

Meanwhile, there's Graham Platner. 

Platner is a 41 year old oyster fisherman and veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq. He took some classes at GWU, while bartending at the Tune Inn. If you know the Tune Inn, and you know he volunteered for the Marine Corps, and now he works as an oyster fisherman...I think you get a sense of who this guy is. He's a manly man! Bernie Sanders loves him and he loves Bernie!

Platner is the left wing populist that online leftists in a Brooklyn loft wished they were. He's a legitimate working class guy, whose attacks on oligarchy are heartfelt and personal. He was treated for PTSD from the war and hates the idea of needless military adventurism. 

Here's the thing, though. Fetterman.

Now Fetterman's "heel turn" may have been caused by his stroke. His saying that he would support a Nobel Fucking Peace Prize for Trump at the same time Trump is militarizing the National Guard to occupy American cities is sort of a baseline violation of everything we need from Senate Democrats. The thing is, Fetterman's whole schtick was being the big, oafish-looking guy in a hoodie. Senator Shrek. 

I think Platner's populism is a little more genuine, but I'm not 100% convinced that genuine populism is a good thing. Bernie Sanders knows when to shut up and vote for an imperfect bill, would Platner? If the guy is so wedded to an "us versus them" version of populism, how is he going to interact with Chris Murphy, when they are very far apart on guns? Can he compartmentalize, the way skilled politicians can? Maybe. 

In the end, it will be up to the Democratic primary voters, whether they want the elderly career politician who has shown she can win a statewide race or the uber-outsider who might better capture the anti-establishment fervor so many Americans feel right now. In some ways, I think Platner might be the better candidate, but I also feel like he's exactly the sort of candidate where some social media post  from 2009 surfaces where he drops a racial slur. Of course, there was something similar with Fetterman, and that didn't stop him.

I suppose on one level all that matters is replacing Collins, and if Platner offers the better chance to do that, then we can live with him being a little weird.