From TPM Reader WM …
Three thoughts on Platner from a coastal Maine resident and why while I’m mad as hell, I’m not feeling all that pessimistic — yet:
(1). The big electoral advantage that Platner brought to the table against Collins was that he expanded the pie of voters, rather than just making it a fight for the middle. Part of that was due to his “Ah shucks I’m just an oyster farmer that hasn’t done politics before” persona which Mainers more than any others are suckers for. But that alone wasn’t really enough to pull that off — he did work his ass off doing town halls and such all over the state which is important everywhere, but even more so in Maine with folks that see themselves as “independent voters”. And his policy positions (health care in particular) resonated very strongly with that particular population, the middle, and more traditional democrats. So I don’t think it would be impossible for someone to step in and NOT shed all of those folks immediately if the replacement immediately commits to pressing flesh to a very high degree and immediately focuses on the polices that are wrecking the lives of working class Maine families. That can be framed in part as a “Collins is all in with Trump” but it also needs to be expressly about – health care and housing (which Trump is gifting as a campaign issue in a state where finding a house for sale, much less in your price range, is not easy). Collins is so tone deaf on the actual issues facing Mainers it really shouldn’t take a wildly magnetic personality to pick this up and go — the main ad I’m seeing from her on my media feed is of a young woman who was born without adult teeth developed, treatment was going to be $80k and her insurance wouldn’ve cover it, but a call to Susan Collins got it done for free at the state dental school. It’s literally an ad that could keep the exact same script but with melancholy music and sad faces and be an opposition ad. Susan Collins’ votes have put us in a position where we have to rely on personal favors from an elected official to get what should be basic health care service. It doesn’t take a wildly magnetic character to pull this off, it just takes someone that does not carry baggage as an opponent to a genuinely progressive agenda — i.e., it can’t be Janet Mills.
(2). Briefly – of course Platner’s camp can’t be involved in any way in choosing who runs. While they’ve gotten a lot right in the campaign the one thing they’ve shown they fundamentally suck at is — choosing a person that is fit to be a candidate for Senate. Yes, allow them to have a say on platform, policy, blah blah blah….but they were the folks with the front row seat and opportunity to vet him throughout all of this, including after his “nothing credible” response to Warren and they completely let all of us down. So on this part of the process – fuck them, too.
(3). While the reddit comments that Mills tried to weaponize against Platner and the NYT article with assault allegations didn’t sink his ship, they did handicap him in a fight against Collins. There was no way that he could come out and speak about how bad she has been for women and even in simple terms, couldn’t hammer her as hard as they should on the Kavanaugh vote. He had to rely on surrogates and third parties to argue that “whatever he’s done to a specific handful of women pales in comparison to the widespread systemic violence Collins has perpetrated against women through her votes” and even that is not REALLY the argument you want to be making “our candidate isn’t as bad as yours!”. And so while I don’t think there should be much of a reset in terms of the basics of the campaign: focus on how Collins has sacrificed the real needs of Mainers to Trump’s platform and is just trying to placate us with a little bit of pork to try to fix the problems that Trump’s platform has created specifically as it has to do with health care and housing. A new candidate – ANY new candidate – can also make a much more full throated argument that Collins vote for Kavanaugh, her enablement of medicaid cuts, etc., have hurt Maine women through closures of birthing centers, and have led to deaths of thousands of women across the country
