Platner’s war: Ending Maine’s gerontocracy

Gordon L. Weil

Graham Platner easily won the Maine Democratic Senate primary to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins.

Platner overcame sharp criticism of some of his past personal behavior, already being made an issue by GOP PACs. 

From a Maine perspective, the national media missed what is taking place, preferring its cosmic level analysis.  Platner’s victory was not mostly the defeat of a Democratic moderate by a progressive.  It was about who could capture the seat from an aging, formerly moderate Republican, who too often supported Trump.

Age is the driving issue in Maine’s campaigns.  Platner defeated Gov. Janet Mills, 78, because she would have been the oldest first-year senator ever.  Maine Sen. Angus King is even older.  Plus, Mills is not the usual moderate; she leans to the right.  Though she vigorously challenged Trump, she is more conservative than her own party in the Legislature.

Collins, 73, suffers from visible hand and head tremors.  Pledged to serve two terms, she now seeks her sixth.  Over her career, she has ossified, going from a popular Mainer to a Washington pro, putting power over principle.  Her status as moderate has faded, partly because she backed the nominations of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Health Sec. Bobby Kennedy, Jr.

Whatever voters’ opinions about the flawed Platner, the calendar doesn’t lie; at 41, he’s a lot younger and more attuned to today’s average Mainers.  And he tells them what they want to hear about the need for change, as the state gradually moves from being bipartisan purple to outright Democratic blue.

The Collins-Platner campaign is likely to follow predictable lines unless one or both falters badly.

Collins will run on the pork-barrel money she has brought back to Maine for local projects.  As chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, she has conceded real spending power to the White House, but she can claim to be the Queen of Earmarks.  Every senator gets their share, but she can “bring home the bacon.” 

As the Republican senator who splits most often with Trump, Collins will try to keep her moderate image alive.  Her balancing act has worked, because her disagreements with the White House rarely make a difference in the final Senate vote.  She characteristically explains away and excuses some of her party-line votes, perhaps because they assure her committee leadership.

Her backers will hammer Platner’s personal defects.  They want women voters to reject him for his sexual gambits and back the female candidate.  Their attacks will be constant, and the GOP will spend heavily to hold onto its last remaining congressional seat in New England.  Still, given how little Trump’s crotch grabbling revelation mattered, these attacks might fizzle.

Platner will run like a progressive.  His major out-of-state support comes from Sen. Bernie Sanders and company, not from Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer.  This will be a hugely costly campaign, so Democratic money matters, and he knows it.  In-state, he will garner the support of respected Democratic leaders.

To some degree, Platner’s chances will depend on voters in Maine’s Second Congressional District, which has supported Trump while narrowly electing Democratic Rep. Jared Golden, who is retiring.  It’s the north-eastern district.  Platner will easily carry the southern, blue First District.

The Democratic governor’s primary is relevant.  It ended with one candidate slightly ahead of three others who are closely grouped.  The winner will be selected by ranked choice voting, and it’s likely the front-runner won’t prevail. The next three ran as a ticket designed to deny him second or third choice votes.  All four are decades younger than Mills.

Anything can happen when the votes are tabulated next week.  Troy Jackson, a former state Senate President, was one of the three and ran well in his northern Maine home territory.  If he’s on the general election ballot with Platner, Jackson could provide valuable help.

Also on the joint ticket was Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, considered by some to be everybody’s second choice.  Candidate Angus King III, running fifth, will be eliminated, and if Bellows picks up enough support from his voters, she could have a chance of moving up to the top.

Maine House Speaker Hannah Pingree, another member of the trio, ran a strong campaign, backed by Mills.  Like Bellows, she would add a woman to the Democratic ballot, which could help calm Platner concerns. 

Hannah’s mother, Rep. Chellie Pingree, the First District U.S. House member, will be easily reelected.  RCV will produce a more liberal Democrat than Golden to run against the aging former Gov. Paul LePage, 77, a Trumper.

There will be more election excitement and spending than usual in Maine. The sharpest irony is that Trump, 80 on Sunday, must back Collins, whom he intensely dislikes but whose Senate vote he desperately needs.  His support could hurt her as much as it helps. 

Sen. Collins meets the common man

Sen. Collins meets the common man

Big money, big attacks coming

 

Gordon L. Weil

Gov. Janet Mills left the Maine Democratic Senate primary race, and the pundits flooded the media with their opinions.

Her story fit their story: the Democratic Party is split between traditional moderates and leftwing progressives.   Her withdrawal showed the progressives are gaining.

The pundits may have been partly correct, but that’s not the whole story.  The split was more practical than ideological.  The dominant question was not about the direction of the Democratic Party, but who had the best chance of defeating Sen. Susan Collins.

The almost automatic response was that Mills, a proven statewide winner with high name recognition, was the ideal candidate to end Collins’ hold on the Senate seat.  Undoubtedly, that led Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, to endorse Mills, but it proved to be too simple a theory.

Sen. Susan Collins usually looks vulnerable to a Democratic challenger, but always wins.  This year, for the first time, with Mills out, she will face a candidate who has not previously held public office – an outsider.   Mills gave way to Graham Platner, an oyster farmer who never held a higher office than harbormaster.

Mills got into the race late.  Collins, who too often had supported President Trump, was losing her reputation as a rare GOP moderate.   Mills, as a two-time statewide winner, could have calculated that her right-of-center record and high voter recognition would give her an advantage.  Platner, already running, could be easily defeated.

She might have believed that she could readily assemble a coalition of coastal liberal voters and her more inland moderate constituents.  After all, that has worked in the Legislature while she’s been governor. 

But Mainers, like people elsewhere, are increasingly dissatisfied with the failure of government, federal or state, to improve their lives.  Collins could bring home Capitol largesse, but a new dock or dam doesn’t put food on the table or gas in the tank.

This sentiment suggests voter despair with both parties.  Voters say they want a candidate who expresses independence from the system.   Sen. Angus King may be an independent, but he comes across as a conventional Democrat. 

Platner appears as bold, basic and original.  His personal defects have emerged, notably a tattoo linked to Nazi symbols and his negative posts about women and even lobstermen.  He readily admits his errors, attributing them to a heedless youth.  Though virtually sure to win, he still faces a respectable, but unfunded, primary opponent.

Collins campaign allies are already attacking him for these faults, but the Democrats seem undeterred.  Since candidate Trump survived his Access Hollywood remarks about grabbing women, voters may have come to ignore the past failings of candidates whose politics they prefer.

The pundits focus on Maine as a purple state – one that could swing between the red GOP and the blue Dems.  One of its two congressional districts has voted for Trump each election.  That might raise doubts about Platner, backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, when facing a statewide electorate.

Trump’s popularity has reflected discontent with government among many Second District rural voters, but he may have lost some appeal.  He backs a candidate in the GOP governor’s primary and has attracted massive financing for him, which pays for a big media buy.  But, at this stage, he is still trailing a more traditional conservative.

Many Democrats saw Mills as too right-of-center.  She opposed the creation of a system of public defenders, though Maine was the last state without one.  She later gave some ground.  Just before her departure, she vetoed a Democratic move to suspend approval of any data centers in the state, which would have set Maine apart.

At 78, Mills’ age counted against her.  She would have been the oldest first-year senator ever.  King, the other Maine senator, is 82.  Maine has the oldest median age, and many seniors are aware of the limits imposed by age when working the long hours required by public life.

Collins, 73, faces age and possibly a health issue, a “benign essential tremor.”  No Mainer has ever served six terms in the U.S. Senate, as she would.  Platner, 41, is slightly younger than the state’s median age of 45.  He will face relentless attacks focusing on his past.  Collins may have some deniability, if her campaign does not directly sponsor the ads.

Her split-the-difference form of moderation will be weakened by her having backed Trump’s cabinet nominations and key policies.  She rarely differs with the president when it counts.

The Maine GOP is divided between moderates and conservatives.   Collins may have miscalculated that she can still hold onto both Rockefeller Republicans and MAGA Trumpers.   She clings to her Senate seat, unlike Olympia Snowe, a GOP moderate who retired gracefully.  Platner may be strong competition in a down year.

Let the campaign cash flow.

 

 

  

Is a November election landslide possible?

 

Gordon Weil

November’s congressional elections may follow a predictable script.

But there could be another scenario, turning an expected squeaker into a landslide.

According to conventional thinking, the elections are contests for a few seats that could tip the balance to the Democrats, giving them a good chance of winning the House and the possibility of a Senate victory.

This thinking inevitably focuses on relatively few elections in scattered swing states or districts.  The Republicans, heavily committed to backing their leader, focus on holding their slim but effective congressional majorities.  The Democrats count on declining presidential popularity to hand them enough seats to gain control.

The elections are clearly about Trump.  His impact factors into virtually every primary and general election.  Strategists assume the status quo will generally survive in most contests with Trump’s political fate determined in marginal seats. 

For Trump, the elections are personal.  He worries that a Democratic House majority will impeach him for a third time.  A man who likes to set “never before in history” records, he doesn’t want this one.

His strategy calls for countering the usual mid-term election losses of an incumbent president’s party.  He believes that erecting obstacles to voting will reduce the number of likely Democratic voters, especially the poor and minorities.  He also pushes for redistricting to tilt political demographics his way and prepares to claim fraud, if the GOP loses.

He punishes Democratic states by cutting funding and launching ICE invasions, creating incentives for them to flip to his side.   Though he has alienated some voting groups, he may write them off as being concentrated in states where he wouldn’t win in any case.  He plays to the prejudices of voters who could protect his majority. 

But there is an alternative scenario.  Suppose his falling poll ratings indicate a widespread national rejection of Trump’s style and substance.  The sagging approval ratings for his presidential performance and almost all his key policies suggest this possibility.  While he could hold his MAGA core, he might face outright nationwide opposition.  

Trump has openly offended women, Blacks, Hispanics and other groups.  His anti-minority beliefs have brought the exclusion of female and Black military leaders, the erasing of American history about slavery and racial discrimination, arrests of people because of the color of their skin, killing Americans and ignoring the Constitution. 

Voters, alarmed by his narrow national policies and bellicose foreign gambits, might now turn out in large enough numbers to transform a campaign for swing seats into an opposition landslide, burying his efforts to tamper with the electorate. 

The split between progressive and moderate Democrats could matter less than their common opposition to Trump.  Still, an upsurge in support for progressives could be a sign of motivated opposition to MAGA.  And if conservative Republicans can win while opposing Trump, that could also weaken his control.

While this is far from assured, indicators could forecast the final outcome.  Take Maine’s June 9 Democratic Senate primary to pick an opponent to GOP Sen. Susan Collins’ sixth term bid.   

Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer anointed Gov. Janes Mills as most likely to be able to unseat Collins.   Mills is a moderate, but would be the oldest first-year senator in American history.  Normally, she would have a lock on the nomination.

But progressive Graham Platner, a Sanders-endorsed oyster farmer, is popular.  While his life story raises questions, polls indicate he is popular and could defeat both Mills in the primary and Collins in the general.   The latest poll, though of uncertain accuracy, surprisingly shows that about one-fifth of Maine voters are socialists.

Normally, Mills would seem a good fit for Maine.  Platner’s showing could represent the signal that a strong response to Trump is popular.  Interestingly, the Trump-oriented candidate in the Maine GOP governor’s primary currently trails, despite massive early spending.

Another marker may be the May 19 GOP House primary in Kentucky’s 4th congressional district.  Incumbent Thomas Massie, a strong conservative, is Trump’s most notable GOP House critic.  The president recruited a MAGA loyalist to oppose Massie.

A Massie win could encourage other House GOP candidates to put some space between themselves and Trump.  If Massie loses, Trump will have reasserted virtually absolute domination over the Republicans.  Massie has been highly popular, so this race has significant potential to turn into a Trump referendum.

Look also at the Texas GOP Senate primary on Tuesday, March 3, where the winner could face a tough general election.  In the Democratic race, a progressive faces a moderate.  A progressive win could be a sign that Democrats see Trump as vulnerable nationally not just in swing elections.

Possibly relevant postscript:  Last week in a UK special parliamentary election, the Greens (progressive) won, defeating Reform (MAGA, having pushed traditional Conservatives aside), with Labour (Democrats) third.  This was a Labour district.