History never actually repeats itself, though it sure seems that way sometimes.
According to Politico, Maine Democrats gave off 2024 vibes when they gathered at county delegate conventions and threw their support behind former state Senate Majority Leader Troy Jackson, a progressive and fifth-generation logger who now appears poised to replace the party’s scandal-plagued U.S. Senate nominee, Graham Platner.
Meanwhile, some voters found both the new candidate and the process wanting.
“He was never going to be like the pick of the consultant class,” 45-year-old Jackson supporter Josh Brockman said.
Brockman, in fact, characterized his preferred candidate as “too much of a regular guy” and “not the slick choice.”
Indeed, even Jackson supporters recognized their candidate as charisma-deficient.
For instance, during Jackson’s recent bid for the Maine governorship, a contest in which he placed third among Democrats, middle school teacher James Gale compared Jackson unfavorably to the dynamic Platner.
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“I thought, geez, I know that he’s a very popular progressive candidate. I really need him to step up his game,” Gale said of Jackson. “He was campaigning alongside Graham Platner, and I think Graham Platner was the one drawing the audiences.”
Likewise, healthcare worker Lindsey Harwath expressed dissatisfaction with the process.
“We were not under the impression that people were going to be already coming into this process predetermined,” Harwath said of the Jackson-dominated county delegate conventions. “That seems very undemocratic. That seems like rigging a process before you’ve done it.”
Rigged or otherwise, the weekend’s results drove out Jackson’s primary competition.
According to WBTS in Boston, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former Maine public health official Nirav Shah, and Maine Beer Company owner Dan Kleban all withdrew from the race.
Former congressional staffer Jordan Wood, however, did not withdraw his Senate candidacy. In fact, Wood cited Jackson’s endorsement of Platner as a problem for Democrats.
“I think that Troy can beat [Republican Sen.] Susan Collins. I think it’s going to be difficult, though, because he helped introduce us to Graham and got a lot of — conveyed a lot of trust and authority onto him,” Wood said.
Platner ended his controversial campaign earlier this month after a woman he once dated accused him of sexual assault. He has denied the allegation.
The entire situation calls to mind the 2024 presidential campaign, which Democrats would rather forget.
After a troubling debate performance that exposed his cognitive decline, then-President Joe Biden found himself pushed aside by party leaders in what amounted to a “coup.”
Having dispensed with a political liability in Biden, Democrats skipped a primary and rushed to nominate then-Vice President Kamala Harris. The choice of the word salad-prone Harris did not exactly energize the party.
Jackson also could remind voters of Democrats’ uneasy relationship with masculinity.
In 2024, Harris chose Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota as her running mate in part because Democrats erroneously believed that Walz’s peculiar brand of masculinity would appeal to male voters.
The people of Maine will decide in November whether a “progressive” logger sounds too much like Walz 2.0.
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