See Post 18

"...we are suspending campaign operations"

Is saying suspending instead of ending because of some legal stuff having to do with campaign funds or something?

It's been going on for a couple decades.

Here's one from 2004
https://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/04/elec04.prez.edwards.suspension/index.html

I believe that if the campaign is suspended rather than ended they can use donations to pay debts.

Bernie encouraged Platner to run.
Bernie encouraged John Fetterman to run.

And while I liked so much of what Platner said-- I remembered how I liked Fetterman. Heard him 4 times, met him each time, talked with him...and I never saw coming what we see now. If only he could be recalled.

I remember thinking after listening to Platner speak--gee, he sure sounds like Fetterman did. I sure hope he isn't in disguise.

We absolutely must win both House and Senate. No chances.

It's up to Maine now. I sure hope Heather Cox Richardson steps forward. I really think they need to have a woman run agains Susan.

Fetterman is a unique case. There are peole close to him who say he changed after his stroke. Let's not put the Fetterman comparison on every Progressive who comes forward sounding like working class.

And let's not put this on Bernie. He encourages a lot of people to run, he has brought a lot of talent into the party, including AOC. They do not as a rule change ideologies midstream or turn out to be scandal-ridden. He is not in the end the one responsible for vetting candidates, there are professionals who are supposed to do that. Bernie does enough. You may or may not like it that Bernie is committed to bringing Progressives into the party, but that is a separate issue from the problems that Fetterman and Platner pose.

Yes, they need to be vetted them and that will be very hard in the time available. I hope the people with the power and responsibility to decide will listen to what Mainers were telling us they wanted instead of just picking the status quo that hasn't prevailed for 30 years.

Candidate people voted for did. Replacement lost. We've got Shithead again.

Everyone. . .going out on a limb. Unless history is terrible guide to go by, Susan Collins will be re-elected and we will lose another winnable seat with an appointed candidate the voters did not choose.

More successful Republican rat fucking. I am not denying these things happened. . .I'm questioning the timing of it.

Bill Clinton and Gennifer Flowers after the DNC "scandal" comes to mind. And we fall for their bullshit all the time.

Do I support Platner. . .I support any Democrat facing a Republican.

But he’s a bigger person than every single person in Maine’s Democratic Party who will now choose who runs, overturning the will of the people. Has anyone actually vetted this woman’s allegations? Very, very doubtful. We just judge, make wild accusations, then at the last minute demonstrate we’re addicts of self inflicted doom and horror.

is that how rape cases should be handled going forward?

A mere accusation is not proof of action.

Which he has admitted to that gives the allegations weight. They are in line with his past "mistakes".

after a primary.

with a history of homophobia, racism, misogyny, harassment and sexual assault it is time to question if there is a difference between the parties.

Why should we trust a person with such a background will live up to their words?

Who are not homophobic and sexual abusers

As for sexual assault, an allegation does not make one a rapist.

Republicans are laughig about how easy it is to take us down by manipulating our values to turn it against us.

We oblige them by immediately acting as judge jury and executioner. against our own. Even if it means losing the Senate.

Making extremely homophobic remarks. He has also admitted to making racist comments blaming victims for rape, having been "a bit rough" with women in his relationships in the past and sexting several women as soon after he was married.

These are things he has either admitted to and/or we're put on social media by him.

An allegation alone it's not enough to put a person in jail. But for a person with such history, it makes the allegation very plausible.

And he certainly never admitted to having been a "bit rough". He said he was a bad boyfriend at times which he takes responsibility for but denied any physicality. The other accusations were overblown, exaggerated or based on a slanted interpretation driven by an agenda to demonize and discredit. It was the groundwork laid for the coup-de-grace of the sexual assault allegation to be unquestioningly believed and acted on. Which does not mean that I disbelieve Ms Racicot, only that I have a lot of questions and thoughts on how all this unfolded.

but he was the architect of his downfall

And underestimated the forces that descended on him, while overestimating his own abilities to fight back. Have a good night.

He's not dead. And Dems are not "taken down."

Maine Democrats are totally on this.

Something else can happen too. And what is different here, there is a process for choosing the candidate. Let's hope they do a good job.

She is a Democrat. No political agenda evident.

She did not video the rape but her testimony is credible. She had reported it to other people when it happen in 2021.

Platner simply had too many skeletons in his closet. Things like this happen in politics. It is not the end of the world.

given electability at this point, regardless of who we believe.

When he raped Jenny Racicot.

This guy should have been vetted a lot better than he was.

Collins was vulnerable this year. This really screws up the opportunity to unseat her.

We have to take eight of eleven senatorial seats and that includes taking at least two Red in order to reclaim the Senate.

Screwing around with this guy is a big set back.

There are people who refuse to drop out

Then you run a bigger one once you know the accusation will torpedo someone.

Everyone is quick to jump on him because of "numerous accusations." Again, this stinks and we fall for it all the time.

right there should have sunk his campaign before it even got started. Instead, appallingly, we had people everywhere on social media and elsewhere dismissing, explaining, rationalizing what should have been instant disqualification the second they came to light.

Joe Biden was also but forced to give up the nomination and we lost!

But what's done is done.

rationalized anything. Your posts in this thread have been most enlightening, and I thank you.

Watch the same shit show start up again. BANK on it.

It's what Republicans DO and have done for decades. Anyone forget about what they did to Obama? Luckily Dems didn't buy the LIES and BULLSHIT about him not being born in the US.

Platner and his campaign advisors fucked themselves, and in the end they fucked us all too. And I'll definitely agree that your anxiety over the abbreviated calendar is completely justified. Susan Collins is a formidable opponent, and losing valuable campaign days is a massive setback.

However, framing this sudden collapse as a successful Republican "rat fucking" operation lets the campaign's massive vetting failures completely off the hook.

The GOP didn't manufacture the Nazi tattoo, the abusive online history, or the explicit texts, the racism, the misogyny, the offensive anti-gay slurs, his use of ableist slurs, and on and on. Those red flags were fully documented.

This wasn't a sudden, surprise ambush... it was a slow-motion car crash. National surrogates and local campaigns chose to look past those glaring warning signs because they fell in love with a platform and a persona. They needed a "hero" and a "savior" and a "revolutionary."

The dam finally burst when severe, multi-source criminal allegations broke this week that made him completely non-viable. Blaming outside forces ignores the very hard lesson our party needs to learn --- when we refuse to honestly vet a candidate, we hand the opposition an easy win.

It's not as though he suffers from medical dysphonia (as RFKJR does) for him, it's clearly an up-talking affectation... like a Karashian or Paris Hilton.

they were put into the Nazi gas chambers. There is no both sides to this debate.

How convenient that he's suddenly guilty of taking part in an illegal war based on a lie just a year before the election. I highly doubt his working-class persona given that he was making hand-over-fist in Iraq doing god knows what.

It goes back to Fredrick the Great of Prussia

Use of the Totenkopf in Germany as a military emblem began under Frederick the Great, who formed a regiment of Hussar cavalry in the Prussian army commanded by Colonel von Ruesch

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Totenkopf

The swastika is an ancient symbol in asian and Native American cultures. It was co-opted by nazis and can never be seen the same way again.

A rapist is a rapist and will never not be a rapist.

Or do people think Hitler,Goebbels and others invented that salute and goose walking?

and precedes the political movement.

Pick a qualified female.

Lets be careful. There are two great men who are Progressive enough to perhaps respond to what Mainers were voting for. (Jackson and Costello). Men shouldn't all be tarred and feathered over this.

The party picked Janet Mills. They need to do better. We need to get person who can win.

After listening to this guy whine for 15 minutes my main question is: "How did this joker ever pass muster with the Maine Democratic Party?" Did they simply swoon over the Marine oyster farmer in a plaid flannel shirt? Because they certainly didn't look into his background.

I think in a wave midterm year, this seat is still very much in play, and the odds are probably still in our favor.

Until we win, Graham, who I say?

Graham Platner will probably exist as a 2026 trivia question where 90% of the people don't remember who he is.

So it was close.

More on the likely nomination process and people in the running here.

And there is every reason to expect that the nominee that comes out of the process will be a much stronger candidate against Collins.

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/some-thoughts-on-whats-next-for-maine

As I wrote yesterday I still believe a solid, strong generic Democrat can beat Susan Collins this November. Harris won Maine by 7 points. Our candidate for Governor Hannah Pingree leads by 15. The generic ballot is 53%-42% Dem right now. This is the most favorable environment of any battleground state right now. But it is going to be essential, vital for whomever we pick to be able to put distance between them and Platner. For not only is he a despicable figure now, his political project was never as successful as his reckless gaslighters led us to believe; and this matters for the broader conversation about the future of our party...

We are going to spend some time with data now.

Over the last several months prior to the June primary Platner led Collins by an average of 7 points over Susan Collins. This is exactly the margin Harris won Maine by in 2024, 4 points below the +11 generic ballot the NYT published last week, and at least 8 points below our gubernatorial candidate, Hannah Pingree. I will once again share that recent chart of how our battleground Senate candidates are doing relative to Harris. This uses the NYT results for Platner from last week:



The Fox News poll last week had Platner trailing Susan Collins by 3. What this all means is that Platner has had the worst polling of any of our battleground candidates in the country this summer in what is by far and away the most Democratic state we are competing in this year.
...
The +15 is where Hannah Pingree, a well-established Democrat in Maine, is right now. Last week Platner was +2 in the NYT poll, and -3 in the Fox News poll.

G. Elliott Morris published an analysis last night that makes some of these same points...

Let’s now look at a bit more data from this new analysis from Morris. The number on the right column is the number of percentage points our candidates are over/underperforming against expectations right now in their nowcast model:

Talarico 5.4
Cooper 4.5
Brown 4.2
Turek 3.7
Michigan -5.9 (both El-Sayed and Haley Stevens)
Platner - 9.9

While Ossoff and Peltola are not included in Morris’ analysis they would fall into the overperformance camp, not the underperformance camp based on publicly available polling data of late.
....

and I too see a lot of talent in Maine.

But in saying the new candidate should distance him/herself from Platner, you are suggesting we learn nothing from the lesson of his campaign. It was his scandals, not his politics that took him down. If you think the movement was fake you weren't paying attention. And if that's the attitude of the Democratic Party, and they pick a younger Janet Mills, a highly motivated electorate will turn into a depressed one.

I'm not suggesting Platner should pick the nominee, but there is no need to pretend this all didn't happen. His politics are still very popular. No one is going to tar any new nominee with his scandals just because their politics resemble his. We know the difference between a policy about healthcare and an allegation of rape. The latter not being contagious.

Now that Platner is no longer the nominee, Simon is expressing his negative assessment of him more clearly. Before he was nominated, Simon expressed reservations about an unvetted candidate. After he was nominated, he was fundraising and calling on folks to help make the campaign successful. He now seems to have concluded that Platner was gaslighting people on multiple fronts -- including the strength of his support and ability to beat Collins.

As he points out, almost any way you look at it statistically, Platner was under-performing relative to where he should have been. And this indicates less of a "movement" than the accepted narrative would indicate.

My views are less clear. But I did take time to revisit the following Washington Post Op Ed from June 8. I just sort of wrote it off when it came out just before the primary. I'm still processing all the various views on Platner, but I may be starting to lean toward the "gaslighting" view. And from that perspective, caution about accepting the narrative that he was the leader of powerful movement without question is prudent.

Here's that op ed:

https://wapo.st/4h0gHJF

I don't know enough about her but I'm more interested in winning than picking people by gender. I understand the worry about men with no time to properly vet anyone, but we just can't afford to narrow the field that much and ignore all the other qualities required for a win.

Sorry, I can't get access to the article.

She was seriously outspent and Collins had secured what is described as "bipartisan support."

Since 2014, her resume has been upgraded. From Gemini (apply the level of skepticism you apply to all AI):

Bellows' trajectory since 2014 includes the following key milestones:

Maine State Senate (2016–2020): Bellows won a district that also voted for Donald Trump, serving as chair of the Labor and Housing Committee. Her legislative efforts focused on equal pay, paid sick leave, and senior property tax relief.

Executive Leadership: She served as the executive director for the Holocaust and Human Rights Center of Maine from 2018 to 2020.

Secretary of State (2021–Present): Elected by the legislature, she became the first woman to hold the office. Bellows focused on government modernization, implementing online and automatic voter registration, and helped Maine achieve national-leading voter turnout in the 2022 midterms.

National Profile: She made national headlines in December 2023 when she ruled that Donald Trump was ineligible for the Maine primary ballot due to his role in the January 6 attack, though this decision was eventually overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.2026

Campaigns: Bellows ran for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination but placed fourth in the June primary.

In July 2026, following the withdrawal of the Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner, she officially entered the race to challenge incumbent Susan Collins.

I will no longer cross her off my list. It's good to know there is so much talent and many of them Progressive. I just hope this "distancing from Platner" idea doesn't make the delegates choose a centrist when it's clearly not what Mainers were asking for.

The other thing Platner had was a lot of charisma and an ability to talk to all kinds of voters. I watched a lot of speeches, interviews, meetings with voters, and I was amazed at how adeptly he responded to questions and addressed concerns in brilliant and surprising ways. I believe that was a large part of why he took off.

Somehow, Democrats have to meet standards Republicans don't. They can be weirdly unappealing like Collins and get elected over and over. I'm not in Maine and I'm guessing you are. It's hard from afar to find out these things about the candidates. Not that I have a vote, but neither do most Mainers at this point. I don't know who has any influence over the 600 delegates, whether they are all party establishment, and to what extent they'll be interested in listening to voters or just picking the guy who aligns with their politics. I assume they know the candidates already on some level and hope they have some process for assessing all these things in the 2 weeks available. And, hoping the public is able to witness the process--which will instill trust, confidence, and excitement about the outcome.

So I have no say either, except as a contributor (which isn't much as I'm working as a dog walker these days after burning out as a tech consultant).

I suspect it will be Nirav Shah, Troy Jackson, or Shenna Bellows. Troy Jackson is backed by folks who backed Platner. He might be seen as
a good candidate to carry on, but lacks the personality factor IMO.

And I would expect key points in the the convention to be televised, at least on public television. We'll have speeches and what not. All good things to get people going!


I haven't seen Bellows in action with voters, so don't have a feel for the level of personal appeal, but here's an interview.

I was also concerned about Troy Jackson personality factor but I've only seen a little of him. I wonder why we aren't hearing more about Costello. Overall, I'm impressed with the pool of talent but then, I never understood the appeal of Collins so it's not about what I like. It's about what will move Mainers. It seems like the majority of the candidates are pretty Progressive, so it should be possible to go that direction if there's a will to do it.

Keeping my fingers crossed that we'll be excited again.

Last edited Fri Jul 10, 2026, 03:10 PM - Edit history (2)

... people have sort of written him off cause he got only 8% of the vote, but who knows how that would have played out if the drunken sexual assault report had come out enough in advance of the primary to give people time to consider him as a "not-Mills" alternative to Platner?

Everyone in contention could have run in the first place but they either didn't want to go against Mills, or they didn't want to go against Platner. I heard that even the person who won the Maine primary is considering running for Senate. WTF?

Let's start with the premise that Platner without the scandals would have beat everybody. When the party went looking for a Senate candidate, they picked Mills over all of these others and then Planter literally drove her out of the election.

Costello was the only one who actually ran against Platner. You can't claim the others would have done better.

... but she's got the chops, the experience, and cojones – figuratively speaking, of course – to kick Trump's cojones through the top of his head. And I'll bet she's got the votes.

She loses to Collins

The new nominee needs help to start running a campaign in the next 2 weeks. The website is mainedems.org for anyone who wants to help.

She's good and they are working at warp speed to select a new candidate.

or replace the status quo that has lost 5 times already.

That sums it up quite correctly!

Genuinely, other than being an "outsider" and spouting populist rhetoric which just takes a pollster, what is his movement that needs to continue? I thought he could be a good candidate, I don't like how he turned out, I'm also not from Maine so my vote don't count, but I never saw him or his campign as any sort of "movement". Just the ever popular "outsider" everyman who was gonna finally put a cork in Collins. But other than that, what did he actually stand for.

He repeated often that the campaign wasn't about him, it was about the movement. Language similar to Bernie. More to the left. Candidate picked by the people, not the party.

There is a rash of Progressive candidates who are viable in surprising places this year. You might call that a movement. Centrist politicians are complaining about it a lot.

So I hope the Maine Democratic Party can get it together in record time to field a viable candidate, otherwise it will be a rubber stamp for six more years of ineffective representation by Susan Collins.

She NOW knows she's damn lucky to still have a political career,she'll kiss Trumps abundant ASS on anything and everything he wants no matter how hideous it is.

My understanding is, the only reason she dropped out was because all of the big campaign donations were going to Platner.
Is there some rule that only a candidate who stuck it out throughout the primary can be selected? Or, is the Party afraid to gamble on an older woman?

She was elected twice to statewide office (and freed even us non-Maine-uhs, from the craven LePage) and directly challenged 45 with an in-your-face attitude.

All that is left is ageism. But if these 80 year olds can move faster than someone 15 years younger, then let them. No one will dare mention Chuck ASSley, who will be 93 in September or Turtle, who is 84. Our former and beloved lion of the Senate - Patrick Leahy - retired from the Senate at 83, just 3 years ago.

I had heard that Angus King's son was looking to run for governor but I wish he would have run for this seat, given all the rancor in the state at the moment.

And as to your question, I had heard that she technically "suspended" but was still on the primary ballot when she lost to Platner, and supposedly indicated that she was still available and willing.

Guess the blunt wasn't so far off.

Of all the shit that this nation is doing these days not just internationally but domestically the Platner issue is so minor....let the people of Maine figure it out.

He's a conman and a liar with a stupid goatee.

We can do better though. CBS Nonnews focused on this extenisively and covered Trump's lies as did other media outlets.

Have morals. We prefer not to have criminals in elected positions.

My understanding is that Maine requires paperwork to actually withdraw. A public announcement isn't enough to be removed from the ballot. Monday is the last day that paperwork can be filed...

Although I wouldn't bet money on it.

He has literally nothing to lose, seems very aggrieved, and strikes me as a guy who would love to just burn it all down.