National Democrats, stay out of it: Let Mainers pick Platner’s replacement

I was born and raised in Bath, Maine — the “City of Ships.” I live in Brooklyn now, but as anyone that knows me can attest, I am and will always be a Mainer. And I was naturally excited to witness Graham Platner — a U.S. veteran and oyster farmer — rise from relative obscurity to become a political phenomenon. 

Was he the right flavor of a progressive outsider who might finally take on Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)? He has all the qualities Mainers love. He is plainspoken, refreshing and, maybe most importantly of all, young. 

I thought he could do it. I said as much over and over again in all of my channels. I truly believed he could break Collins’s stranglehold on a Senate seat in which she pledged to serve only for two terms. Mind you, she made that pledge back in 1996, when I was a junior at Morse High School.

Since then, Collins has been a moderate in name only. She has been a steadfast supporter of President Trump for both of his terms, and his policies have been devastating to Maine families. This cycle, people like me were confident that Mainers were finally waking up to her “but I’m a moderate” nonsense. She’s never been the deciding “no” vote on any single piece of Trump-backed legislation. 

I thought we were finally sending Collins off to her retirement. Then, as is often the case in politics, we saw Platner’s true colors. He made his defenders look like fools.

His words and alleged actions are those of........

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