The WSJ’s editorial board reports on Maine making a mess for itself by rushing to anoint flawed progressive oysterman Graham Platner as Maine’s Democratic nominee for Senate. Well, no lessons were learned there, as Maine’s Democrats are now trying to nominate another left-wing hero: state Senate president Troy Jackson.
Jackson, a former logger from northern Maine, is a rare rural figure for a state party dominated by Portland progressives. His campaign website portrays him as not a politician, rather a man of the people.
“A fifth-generation logger from Allagash” (was) a “lifelong fighter for workers’ rights.”
His political inspiration comes from his father and other loggers, Jackson says, “standing up to a wealthy landowner who thought he could squeeze them for more.”
Jackson’s themes differ, however, from those of Democratic Socialists like Mr. Platner or NYC’s Zohran Mamdani:
- Medicare for All
- a federal right to abortion
- taxing billionaires and “greedy corporations”
- ending U.S. support for Israel’s military
- abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Longtime Maine GOP incumbent Susan Collins always does better than expected at the polls, but will she outperform Jackson? After all, Jackson finished 3rd in the Democratic primary, behind fellow progressive Hannah Pingree and Nirav Shah, former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
Maine’s progressives are still angry about how the Platner kerfuffle was handled. But as the Journal’s editors point out, it’s also a chance for Sen. Collins to hold her centrist, bipartisan coalition.
We shall have to see.
