Platner quit the Maine Senate race. Democrats have four months to find someone willing to pretend they wanted this job all along.
The party now gets to handpick a replacement candidate without the messy inconvenience of voters choosing during a primary. Democracy works best when the people who lost get promoted after the winner leaves. Ask anyone who finished second at anything. They'll tell you it feels exactly like winning.
Maine Democrats will huddle in a room and select someone based on criteria that definitely matter to regular people. Fundraising connections. Name recognition in Portland. The ability to smile while saying the word bipartisan without vomiting. Standard stuff.
Four months until the midterms means the new nominee gets to skip the part where they build grassroots support and jump straight to the part where consultants spend six figures on ads showing them walking through a field. The field will be in Maine. The candidate will wear a fleece vest. The voice-over will mention working families exactly three times.
Whoever gets the nod will face voters who already made a choice in the primary. Those voters picked Platner. Now they get someone else. It's like ordering a sandwich and the restaurant brings you a different sandwich and says you'll like this one better because the chef has strong opinions about it.
The replacement candidate will give speeches about earning the trust of Maine voters. They will not mention that Maine voters were never asked. They will talk about fighting for everyday people while attending a wine cave fundraiser in Kennebunkport. They will promise to bring fresh energy to a race they joined because the first person bailed.
The midterms are in four months and Maine Democrats just hit the reset button on a race that was already in progress. Nothing screams electoral confidence like scrambling to find a new candidate after Labor Day gets circled on the calendar.
Photo by Jonah Hochstadt on Unsplash
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