Maine Man

 

Troy Jackson -- AP

  

Lot of reading to do right now about Troy Jackson, Graham Platner's replacement as the Dems Senate candidate in Maine. (His nomination is not official yet, but every news source is saying Jackson has it sewn up. Four other would-be candidates dropped out and endorsed him. Delegates vote this coming Saturday.) 

Jackson's "Beefeater face"* shouldn't mislead you that he hasn't been both a working man and a man of action. His mother was 16 when he was born, his father a struggling logger like his own male forebears going back three generations. The Jackson men all "went to the woods." Troy made a living loading and hauling cut timber for corporate growers as an employee. The growers got together, changed the haulers from employees to contract workers (the First Shafting), and then in 1998 imported a bunch of Canadian sawyers, who were cheaper labor because of the exchange rate and because they're covered by Canadian socialized medicine. Hiring the Canadians was illegal under U.S. law. Jackson joined others to organize a week-long blockade at the border with Quebec in 1998 to thwart the corporations. Jackson and two other ringleaders got led away in handcuffs, escorted off the property, told they were banned from it for life, and then let go.

Instead of strictly going away, Jackson got catapulted into politics. He first ran unsuccessfully as a Republican, was first elected to office as an Independent, and then joined the Democratic Party in 2004. Deciding that having a hand in law-making was far more useful than protests, Jackson first ran and won a seat in the Maine House of Reps in 2000 and won, switched his focus in 2002 and ran successfully for Maine Senate, held the seat until term limits ousted him in 2008, came back immediately in 2010 to run successfully again for the Maine House, went back to the Maine Senate in 2012 and remained there through December 2024 when term limits once again caught him. The Senate clearly suited him, and he could get stuff done, important progressive stuff like passing statewide free breakfast and lunch for every public school kid in the state, like improving funding for rural hospitals, like protecting union workers, and keeping Maine a pro-choice state. When he was term-limited out in 2024, he had risen in prominence, elected by his peers as Democratic Leader and then President of the Senate. 

He's one determined Yeoman Warder. He ran in the Democratic primary for Governor this year and came in third. Throughout his political career, he has been resolutely progressive, and already the right is braying about Democratic Socialists. Good!

Jackson is described as blunt and sometimes profane (I wouldn't expect anything less from a Mainer!). He's personally well liked across party lines, seen as authentic rather than polished, regarded as unusually knowledgeable about legislative procedure, viewed as "the real deal" on labor issues, and can be criticized for lacking charisma. He can't compare to Graham Platner there.

 

Jackson has to now raise a lot of money to compete with Susan Collins. He's better known out of the gate than Platner was, who had to build a following by showing up everywhere. His combat-ready aura may be enough -- that and the insurgency that Platner ignited -- may be enough to overcome the charisma deficit.

 

*Beefeater face: the jowly, rudy, well-fed look of the Tower of London's Yeoman Warders. 

 

The Rain in Maine

 

BREAKING NEWS: Governor Janet Mills drops out of the Maine Democratic senatorial primary. She had once been considered a front-runner to take on Sen. Susan Collins this November. 

Something of a political bombshell. Mills had been "aggressively recuited" to run by Chuck Schumer. She was supported by Emily's List and other prominent liberal groups. As governor she was well known in Maine, had a life in politics behind her (attorney general and member of the Maine House) which came with all the money connections she'd ever need (we thought). Plus she was famous for one bit of video. She had been the lone woman who stood up to Trump at the White House when she defied him about trans rights. But what was super cool about a female governor willing to say to Trump's face on that occasion, "see you in court!" curiously did not translate into any groundswell of support, and she said forthrightly today that she was ending her campaign because she was out of money and had poor prospects for raising more.

Renegade Democratic candidate Graham Platner was polling well ahead of her -- by over a whopping 30 points. Platner has been running away with the primary as someone so authentic and so obviously logical that all the mainstream branding as "left-wing radical," compounded by liberals' clutching their hearts over three very old Reddit posts, had not blunted his rise as a progressive hero. Platner incidentally and willingly owns the hotheaded stupidity of those posts, admitting that he had been an angry young man, back from his 4th combat deployment in Afghanistan, alone, and isolated. Those words do not represent who he was deep down even then and certainly not who he is now. Listening to him talk sense, clearly enunciating a philosophy based on a deep historical understanding of how best to wield power for equity and fairness, I see a winner.

I recommend the interview with Platner that John Stewart did for his podcast (YouTube). Stewart prods Platner a little on why someone with his populist and sometimes libertarian instincts, coming out of the Marine Corps with its hyper-masculine warrior culture, why he wasn't attracted to or "captured" by the Alt Right. Platner's response is humbling: "I read a lot of history books." If he's something of a roughneck, he's an intellectual roughneck who has the right understanding that the failures of the Democratic Party are failures of courage and nerve. 

  

Platner was recruited by a group of labor activists looking for other working people to run in key races. They came to Platner -- who was prominent as a Bernie Sanders fan and a local official on the Eastern Shore of Maine as well as a working oyster farmer who knew the lives and needs of working people -- and they offered him an immediate three things to jump-start a senate campaign: a professionally produced "launch" video, access to small-dollar fundraising, and exposure in the press. The launch video alone in August 2025 got over 2 million views in 24 hours (one of those viewers was me), raised a million dollars, and incited almost 3,000 volunteers willing to hit the streets and the phones for Graham Platner. I immediately wrote enthusiastically about what I was seeing.

"The enemy is the oligarchy!" Graham Platner's launch video: 

 

 

Graham Platner scares at least one of the NC Democratic strategists that I listen to, whose opinion I respect, who is more moderate than I in his enthusiasms, and who has already predicted that Platner can't ultimately beat Collins because his "radical" grassroots intellectualism will end up doing him in. That analysis is based on past history of liberal forces getting way out over their skies and ending up massively disappointed. I'm actually more worried, especially after watching the Jon Stewart podcast, about what establishment grinding Graham Platner will undergo as a senator in Mugstomp-on-the-Potomac. I'm a little shy about unpolished surfaces ever since John Fetterman made an unconventional pitch for support and promptly got coopted.

On the other hand, perhaps when Platner gets to the Senate he can lead Fetterman gently back to the light. Platner has that kind of serious pastor aura about him, signaling that he would always try to rescue the perishing and care for the dying. He's got true Marine purpose. 

 

The Rain in Maine Gets Heavier

The candidate briefly seen at the end of this YouTube video and reportedly a Chuck Schumer recruit to take on Sen. Susan Collins and flip the seat blue (see the AP story below), Maine guv Janet Mills would make total sense as a potential winner if you only think like an establishmentarian. A 77-year-old, lifelong politician who recently defied Trump in public with cameras present -- "I'll see you in court!" -- looks like the perfect, experienced (plugged into power already) Democratic prospect:

Great respect for that woman. In a room of cowering male sycophants, she was the one person with cojones. The president of the United States sez to your face, "If you don't do as I say, I'm gonna cut you off in a day of judgment," and you reply "Eff you, you punk," only you can't say the eff word, but it means the same thing when you say, "I'll see you in court!" So I can applaud that tough lady as a potential winner. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Maine Gov. Janet Mills [77] is taking steps toward running for the U.S. Senate in 2026, sources tell The Associated Press, adding another big-name Democrat to the list of candidates expected to vie for key Republican-held seats next year.

Mills, who is term-limited next year, has made calls to prospective campaign managers, according to two sources with direct knowledge of her efforts. They spoke on condition of anonymity because Mills has not formally announced her candidacy.

Graham Platner 

Democrats would still face a difficult path to regaining the majority in a 2026 midterm election when they need to win a net of four seats, with most of the races on the ballot in states Republican President Donald Trump won comfortably last year.

I don't know, my brethren. Would Janet Mills, at 77 years old, be taking on the heavy lift of a senate campaign if Schumer hadn't promised her major Party help? Her entry will have huge impact on Graham Platner, the Maine oysterman with star quality who's already in the race and already attracting major rebel money. I profiled Platner. He's caused some genuine excitement.

Maybe Janet Mills beats him (and two or three other lesser-knowns) in the primary. And maybe she then beats Susan Collins. I'll applaud. But I'll do more than just applaud when my Party backs determined and clear-eyed workingmen and -women who know intimately the failings of the corporate establishment. 

 

Labor Needs Seats at the Table

Annie Karni in today's New York Times sees (and explores in some depth) the rise of impressive candidates who have been laborers and who know how to relate to the working class. Many or most of these new candidates on the Democratic side are running for US Senate seats, and they represent a real departure from the typical kinds of people Democrats have recruited in recent years to win elections -- "educated professionals with sterling pedigrees, including prestigious national security credentials." That's the elite, fussbudget image the Democratic Party wears like an opera cape.

Karni writes about many of the working-class candidates whose names I recognize, because I've written about them too, like Dan Osborn, industrial mechanic at the Kellogg’s plant in Omaha, or Graham Platner, an oysterman from the tiny town of Sullivan, Maine, or Nathan Sage, a car mechanic who was raised in a trailer park in Mason City, Iowa. These guys are attracting attention as mold-breakers and their blunt speech has energy and sting. Some of them are raising impressive money, like Graham Platner, running for Susan Collins' Senate seat. Yet the Democratic establishment has refused to endorse any of them, which is frankly infuriating. Sen. Chuck Schumer's machine in the Senate wants "safer" candidates (like a 77-year-old former governor in Maine rather than Graham Platner). (And granted, Dan Osborn is running as an Independent in Nebraska, which makes him forbidden fruit to the Party establishment. That shying away from Independents is also a policy that needs to change in certain circumstances, especially when and where Democrats don't have a viable candidate of their own and aren't likely to find one.)

Reporter Karni understands the numbers: "The halls of Congress are still, by and large, populated by career politicians, lawyers and wealthy businessmen. About 78 percent of senators currently serving in office hold an advanced degree, according to Congressional Quarterly. More than 30 percent of House members and 47 percent of senators hold a law degree."

So make no mistake. It's a class issue, which Bernie Sanders has been warning us about: 

“The Democratic leadership [Mr. Schumer, call your office] has got to make a choice whether they stand with their billionaire friends and corporate backers or whether they stand with the working class. The leadership much prefers the comfort of wealthy people rather than working-class people and grass-roots organizing. That’s a profound mistake.”

Meanwhile, the candidates profiled by Karni understand struggle, which makes them potent if not outright revolutionary for saving the Democrats: “We work nonstop every day, over and over, and it seems like all we do is survive, right?” Nathan Sage told voters at a recent event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. With Sage's "right," he punctuated his connection to his audience's reality, and the crowd roared their fellow-feeling. They had found a champion. What differentiates a Nathan Sage from MAGA is that progressive labor doesn't want to burn it down. It wants to reform and build it stronger to uphold the social contract.

The Rain in Maine

 

Maine guv Janet Mills

I'm watching a generational struggle in the Democratic Party, and I'm rooting for the youngins. While Chuck Schumer and other Democratic senators in charge of candidate recruitment for US Senate races seem always to go "safe," which generally means old (in fact, old establishment), a cohort of new, younger contenders have become proverbial clods in the churn.

Take the Maine Senate seat occupied by Susan "I'm Very Concerned" Collins, who must run for reelection next year. In her last reelection of 2020, she took only 51% of the vote in a ranked-choice election with three other candidates. She had been taking over 60% of the vote in her previous two reelections in 2014 and 2008. She looks vulnerable for any number of reasons, though mamby-pamby weakness may just be Susan Collins's super-power. I wouldn't bet against her winning another reelection in '26.

Schumer and other big-wig Democrats are trying to recruit two-term Maine Governor Janet Mills, who is 77 and about as establishment as you can get. She served two terms as Maine's Attorney General before running for the Senate. She has the inside lane and the name recognition, and she'll probably end up winning the Democratic primary if she runs. But ... 77. Really?

Democratic war veteran and oyster farmer, 40-year-old Graham Platner, says he's in the race whether or not Janet Mills announces, and he's getting a lot of attention today on social media. (I'm a very shallow fellow.) Platner has never run for office before. Take a look at his website. Politico sums him up:

Graham Platner 

Platner is running on several progressive tenets — though he rejects the label “liberal” — calling for universal health care, saying “the enemy is the oligarchy,” and asking, “Why are we funding endless wars and bombing children?” He also zeroed in on high prices, a top concern of voters and one that helped fuel Zohran Mamdani’s rise in New York City.

Platner told POLITICO he would have supported Sen. Bernie Sanders’ recent resolution to block arms sales to Israel.

Platner also told Politico that he wouldn't vote for Chuck Schumer to continue as the Democratic leader.

I get this detail about Platner from the website of the Waukeag Neck Oyster Co., which Platner' owns:

Graham Platner was born and raised in Sullivan, where he lives with his wife Amy and their animals. After time in the military, he returned home in 2018 to get involved in oyster farming. In 2019 he took over operation of Waukeag Neck Oyster Company, slowly but sustainably making it a commercially successful small scale aquaculture operation. An inveterate diver and lover of the sea, he also runs a mooring service and serves as Harbormaster in Sullivan.

As an ex-military man, he's pro-gun without being nuts. He actually teaches novices how to handle and use handguns, and he's a competitive handgun marksman.