Latest / The Nation Podcasts / Maine After Platner w/ Eoin Higgins / The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

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Maine After Platner w/ Eoin Higgins / The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer · The Nation Podcasts

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: The old world is dying, the new world struggles to be born, now is the time of monsters.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: With these words from Graham Shah, welcome to you to the time of monstrous podcast, which is sponsored by the Nation Magazine.
• 0:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm G. Chair of the Nation.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now this week we're going to take up the sort of story of Graham Platner and what's happening in Maine.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm very happy to have on frequent guests at a program on Higgins.
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: As we talked about recently, author of a really great book, Owned.
• 0:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And someone who has a very good grasp of the politics of the area.
• 0:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because I think that, like, when we're telling you about Graham Flotner, there's a specifically main story that I think gets left aside because as in so many other elections, it's become nationalized.
• 0:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: So first of all, I want to say, yeah, and welcome to the program.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for having me.
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So let's just, I think people, you know, obviously heard a grandfather, but let's just catch everyone up, like, where are we right now?
• 1:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's the state of play?
• 1:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: He had a sort of spectacular rise.
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Got 71% of the vote in the primary.
• 1:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: There are only people that doubt for him for a variety of reasons, which you can go into.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then now he's had an even equally spectacular fall.
• 1:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: So what is this sort of grandflatner story?
• 1:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I'll I'll try and summarize it relatively quickly just because I assume that a lot of your listeners will probably have at least the broad strokes, but Platter kind of exploded on to the scene back in August 2025.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I possibly July, but I think August was when he really started to make waves.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was a candidate for Senate.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was running as kind of like.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: an outsider Democrat, he had a populist left wing message that was, you know, a kind of hitting all of the left Democrat points, you know, an outspoken support for trans rights, outspoken support for Palestine and kind of unequivocal condemnation of Israel's genocide in Gaza.
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was anti-corporate power.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: and he also presented himself as opposed to not only Susan Collins, the incumbent, the Republican, but also to the Democratic establishment.
• 2:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So these things all kind of work together to present him as a rather, rather left-wing candidate.
• 2:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was packing town halls and other events throughout the state.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I mean, it's pretty small, right?
• 2:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: 1.8 million people.
• 2:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: The size of the state geographically is almost as big as the rest of New England.
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's heavily forced that I think per capita might be the most rural state in the nation, down where I live and the kind of the poor, the metro area is kind of where most people live.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you know, there were 1.8 million people here, so if you are campaigning, you do have to go up into the state into and north and you know, out to the coast and he was doing that if he did like 80 town halls up until, you know, just recently.
• 3:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: and kind of getting his message out and that made him quite popular but also at the same time you know in the fall last fall we started to see some hints that there were problems.
• 3:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So first he had a Totenconf tattoo which is the neo-na, the Nazi death-sed tattoo
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, it is true.
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just want to be clear that it is true that the German military has had a Totencoff tattoo or a Totencoff symbol for many, many years before the Nazi Totencoff one.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: But one to he got is the specifically Nazi one.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: uh he said that he didn't know when he got it and that he only found out about it in October uh the first one i think i believe the second one i don't find credible but whatever he got it covered up then his old reddit post came out in the real lot of
• 4:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: questionable comments about people in rural Maine, black people, women, there were some comments about women who were raped and whether or not they have responsibility for their own assault, comments that were disgusting, but that he said, I've changed, I've got better
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, the general narrative he presented was that like, you know, he was a guy who had, you know, served in Iraq and Afghanistan had been, you know, suffered from the sort of very common traumas of soldiers had been messed up had a period of like alcoholism, but that he was like, you know, working to redeem himself and that he was improving.
• 4:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, people recognize that, you know, like, many of us have, like, flaws that have imperfect histories and you don't want to be, you know, just people by their worst moments.
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's also, I mean, I think that there was a kind of compelling narrative there.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's yeah.
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Sorry.
• 5:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I forgot to mention he was a veteran.
• 5:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's like a huge part of his appeal.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll also an oysterman in coastal Maine.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I mean, you know, there were attacks that maybe he was presenting himself as two working class when he wasn't really that working class and his supporters would say he's more working class than that at that point.
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: It kind of becomes this back and forth kind of endless and kind of boring back and forth on that.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: had kind of cleared the lane for Janet Mills to run.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the governor here.
• 5:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: She is 78 years old.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: She never seemed like she was particularly into it.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And by the time that she jumped into the race, Planner had just a massive lead.
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: She tried to hit him pretty hard to some negative ads around February.
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Those did not land at all.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: So she basically suspended her campaign, stopped campaigning.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was one other candidate, David Costello, he, I don't think he ever pulled below above two percent.
• 6:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not even really worth going into him right now, no offense to Mr. Costello, but just for the purposes of this.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: So a platter continues to have success.
• 6:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's a sensation.
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's getting tons of media coverage.
• 6:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now these scandals are continuing to kind of bubble under the surface, but
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nothing has really come out.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: June 9th was the primary, and there was a story that dropped a week before, I think they've been early in June 9th.
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, there was a story that dropped in early June.
• 6:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: with allegations from an acts of his called Lindsay Fifell saying that he had been physically abusive toward her.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: That just physically abusive.
• 7:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: There were a few other women quoted in the piece who said that, you know, maybe he wasn't the greatest with women, but not not alleging anything, including this woman, Jenny Reassacot, who said that she had dated him a few years.
• 7:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: prior to that.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: While I think a lot of us would find physical abuse to be a hard line, the voters of Maine did not think so and gave him a 53% lead over mills who got 19%.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, she wasn't in a campaign at this point.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And platters seemed like he had kind of a glide path to go up against college.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And at this point, as someone who had been following this race and his somebody who has lived in Maine for a while, I thought that he had a pretty good shot to beat Collins at this point.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I just want to say that because before we get to the end of his campaign, which is, which is, I guess ongoing now, it depends on what's happened by the time the people are listening to this.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Over the course of the month of June, he really dipped in the polls.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's reporting now from the New York Times that by the time it is camped by the time that this latest scandal dropped, he'll be at $100,000 cash on hand, which I find almost impossible to believe, but hey, if they're reporting that to New York Times, it doesn't usually get stuff like that wrong.
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, obviously something that started to crumble a little, but I noticed, like, because I watched a lot of baseball, and so I would see a lot of campaign ads and running up to the primary, there were tons of them for platinum, tons of them, and tons of them for colon.
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the last few weeks, even before this, I noticed that the platter ones have kind of started to dissipate a little bit.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the only ones that were really still on were these pack ones that were criticizing columns, but for, you know, things like Federalist rights and like stock trading and voting with Trump, etc.
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: None of it was like kind of specifically pro-planer and then on July 6th and it drops.
• 9:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just, do you want to add anything before I go?
• 9:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no.
• 9:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was only going to say one reason for perhaps the drop in the polling, my sense is that it has also been a kind of perilous scandal of the sort of sexting while being buried in sort of, you know.
• 9:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if they didn't have anything about it to like actual physical adult people.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was clearly doing a lot of bad behavior.
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: My sense is that that in particular hurt him because again it didn't quite fit into the narrative because this is all actually stuff that happened like while he was already running as a candidate.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it didn't... No, no.
• 10:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: No.
• 10:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not what he was running as a candidate but within the last three years, it was...
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I did notice that the lady up the street who had a plan or sign for a very long time did pull it when the sex thing scandal came.
• 10:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, and I do think that it sort of complicated the sort of what I think was the redemption narrative that he had successfully had and made people, you know, have a second look as to who this guy was.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: But but yeah, so he had won the primary, but his polling was going down, and there's reasonable reasons to think that his money was also running out.
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.
• 10:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And just like one other thing about the sizing thing, too, is that, you know, I don't think that that was insurmountable, ultimately I think at this point, people are probably at the level where the like, you know, what happens within a relationship happens within a relationship, and you just kind of have to
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It would really kind of come down to like, is this more important than, you know, putting Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, you know, leading to the end of row.
• 11:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that was kind of what the Democrats were aiming to do.
• 11:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: You could kind of see that coming.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: But then, uh, but yeah, I mean, I don't have to tell where I've represented the change because originally he was running as a sort of I'm offering a positive alternative I will be the sort of populist alternative to both seasoned columns and the democratic party and you know,
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Already, you know, within the last mass before this latest kind of broke, I think he had been reduced to having a lesser evil argument, you know, which is always an inspiring one, like even though I think it can sometimes work and I think certainly Susan Collins is someone who especially she's running in a democratic state and really is these, you know, one of the senators most singularly responsible.
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: for the end of like abortion rights.
• 11:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I think that that, you know, he could have he could have leaked out of victory as a lesser evil, but that in itself was a reduction from what he originally was running as.
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, let's put a pin on a pin that just for a second because I think that'll come up once we get to what's going on now or like what would come next.
• 12:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, the primary election happened in early June, and there was really no stopping planner at that point, and really the only way that you could stop planners if he somehow were to drop out by July 13.
• 12:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: In which case, up until that point, the state party would have two weeks, either two weeks or a complete deadline of July 27, the camera which one it is, in order to find a replacement for it.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So on July 6th, one week before that, Politico published his story from Jenny Rassicot, the same woman who I mentioned before, right?
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Who had been in this story, who had mentioned that, he had been mostly good in their relationship but that there had been one incident that she kind of like hinted at and then your time story that didn't go into it.
• 13:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: The details are pretty.
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: hard.
• 13:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll kind of go over them very quickly, which is basically that he entered her home without her permission while he was drunk and and raked her, essentially.
• 13:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's that's her claim.
• 13:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: It seems very credible to me.
• 13:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: It seems, there's no absolutely no reason to doubt it personally.
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, just based on the reporting, I mean, it has the basis not only of her claim, but also like all the sort of stuff that a reporter would put in a look at to a public citizen as an article, which is to say that they were like emails and phone conversations showing a relationship showing up.
• 13:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think that it's, um, and I want to, like, underscore this point because I noticed that some people are, I think quite irresponsible, you know, casting down on the story, but it is a completely credible story.
• 14:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know, and to me,
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: further underscored are completely horrifying story.
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, yeah, what's Lopes, anything that had previously been said about him, it's known as both of those.
• 14:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that any journalist should obviously question and investigate any allegation like this.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: However, there are ways to do it.
• 14:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's just leave it at that.
• 14:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you know, so,
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: basically this is kind of blown up his entire campaign.
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yesterday, so we're recording July 9, this Thursday, yesterday, July 8, he puts out this 11 minute kind of rambling video attacking the Democratic establishment and his former allies and basically saying that he's being forced out of the race and that he's choking up, he seems angry,
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, so just a couple of things about that.
• 14:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: One, my friend, Nicky McCann, Ramirez, his report for Rolling Stone.
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: She was on MSNow when this video came out.
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And she said something right after that, that was really, really sharp, which is, you can tell that this guy's campaign comms team is gone, because there's no way that they would allow him to put out an 11 minute video at this.
• 15:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: But later comes out that that was a condition that he set with his team in order to to drop out that he would be able to deliver this kind of rambling diatribe about this.
• 15:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: But his campaign is over.
• 15:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, he still has not signed the papers to withdraw, which he has to do by 5 p.m. next Monday, July 13th, depending on
• 15:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: When you're listening to this, he has already done that, or not done that, or you're still waiting to see if he's going to do that because it's not 5pm on Monday yet.
• 15:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, whatever the case, that is his deadline.
• 15:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And while the law allows for the Democratic Party in Maine to
• 15:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Replace them, there's nothing about what process they have to go through or how that's going to be done.
• 16:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the main two, no, no pun intended, the main two options that were discussed were kind of doing like a mini convention.
• 16:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: or doing a kind of a mini caucus.
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, a mini convention, which I think is what they're going to do, is taking delegates, proportional delegates from each county and having them all meet for a commission, do that.
• 16:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: In order to do a caucus, I think you'd have to do that town by town that is not something I think is impossible.
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think that that, I'm not saying that it's a bad idea, it does seem very difficult, though, probably more difficult.
• 16:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: The thing is, and I posted this online, that the people are not going to be happy with this.
• 16:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, people are not going to be happy with whatever solution there is, right?
• 16:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Sure, yeah, I mean, we're wearing that sort of like a crisis situation, and yeah, you just a motion is a very high.
• 16:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: At least illusion you've got something that is going to be like an imperfect one.
• 16:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but but I think that there's more or less democratic ways.
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: of doing that, and I think that theologians have some sort of voter input is very important, and I think one reason is, once things back, to Joe Biden dropping out, and then Kamala Harris, one of the things she did was almost immediately secure his support for her being the nominee.
• 17:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there were people at the time, I'll mention, like, nation-college on nickels, because I think he was extremely right about this, and people should have paid more attention to him.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: including myself to the paperboard, I do where he said like, you know, like we should not, you know, have a coronation of Kamala Harris.
• 17:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we should even however hard it is to hold a convention or to get people together.
• 17:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: You have to have some sort of process to legitimize the nominee, otherwise, and it could end up being Kamala Harris, but it would not have legitimacy or until you do that.
• 17:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that John was right, I think it extremely hurt the Democrats and heard the Harris herself, like not to have some sort of process where there was input by voters.
• 18:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's the same lesson applies.
• 18:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think the one good thing, whatever they come up with, I like the main Democratic Party is going to make the mistake that the National Democratic Party made in 2024.
• 18:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that
• 18:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: you know, as you're indicating, the however and perfect solution there is, they will be like some sort of input from more than just their sort of party elite.
• 18:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think so so there are a couple of points here to make and I mean, and I'll start met national and I'll go down to state, right?
• 18:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the first thing I was saying nationally is that
• 18:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: People who are following this online, especially on social media, are probably getting the impression that this is a real drag out fight between these two wings of the party and that the establishment is trying to really screw over the
• 19:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: people, the movement, the supported platter.
• 19:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And while I want to be clear that I think that that is certainly something that could possibly happen, I'm sure the Chuck Schumer would love to do that.
• 19:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, he believes in his procedure here and I think he thinks that his pick would be the best.
• 19:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you listen to what sorry gets near a tandem, what people from search light
• 19:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of them are saying the movement that got platinum here needs to have an outsized role.
• 19:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the reason I think they're saying that is that they realize exactly what you're talking about with John said is that if you don't do, if you do this in a way that seems illegitimate, you're going to completely lose any chance that you have of getting to see, you're going to fracture the party, and it's going to just look horrible.
• 19:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that that is worth saying that while I do believe that it's possible that the establishment, the Democratic Party establishment may be trying to do some underhanded stuff.
• 20:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'll be very surprised that they're not.
• 20:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do also think that there's a part of the establishment that realizes what a huge mistake that would be and they're trying to head that off of the past as quickly as possible.
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now as far as the state party goes,
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is hard for me to imagine that they would do something that would completely throw out the desires of the party base.
• 20:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, almost three-quarters of voters voted for Grandplatter.
• 20:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: he got over 150,000 primary votes, that's the most votes in the Democratic primary history in the state.
• 20:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a huge turnout for a state that has just under a million registered voters, just over 300,000 registered Democrats to have
• 21:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: A little, it had like 40% of them come out and vote for a candidate is very big in a primary, especially in a rural state, but really in any state.
• 21:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I think we have one drink on this card, the partner, there was a genuine move out there, and there was a movement coming out of something I wasn't seeing all across the country, which is like a democratic party base that is very mobilized.
• 21:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: and very angry and wants to change within their own party.
• 21:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that is there.
• 21:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And as she said, you know, like it's a huge chunk of the voters, and they can't win without those voters.
• 21:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, not only can they not win, but like that, like this is their party that they, it's, it's it's not even that they are supposed to represent.
• 21:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is the party that like puts them into power.
• 21:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is the party that keeps them, like, like puts, like, elects them as leaders.
• 21:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, these are, these are people,
• 21:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: who they will have to hear from, you know, like every day like going down to the market, like, you know what I mean?
• 22:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like this is a small area, like there's a lot of small towns.
• 22:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that that needs to be kind of understood and thought about as a potential here.
• 22:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, Maine has ranked choice voting, which is very important to what comes next, because because it has ranked choice voting, you can kind of trace how popular different candidates are.
• 22:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And while we had the Senate election, which was a blowout, right, we also had the Democratic primary for governor.
• 22:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And in that, we saw five candidates and it ended up to be Hanna Pengry, who's the daughter of Shelley Pengry, the representative for Maine's first district.
• 22:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Hanna is going to be the Democratic nominee now for governor.
• 22:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: But here's how she did it.
• 22:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the beginning, when the
• 22:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Narav Shah, the CDC, he kind of managed the state through COVID.
• 23:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's how he's very popular here because of that.
• 23:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was in the lead.
• 23:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think he had like 36 to 37 percent.
• 23:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: But Pinguie, Shanna Bellows, his secretary of state and Troy Jackson former state senate president had cross-end Dorsey each other.
• 23:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this was actually a grand planter's idea.
• 23:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was for the three of them to cross Dorsey each other because then like one of those three was likely
• 23:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: to make it through the thing, right?
• 23:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So because ranked choice voting the way there works is that you, you count up the votes and then the lowest vote gather, their votes go to the next to their second choice and then those all get distributed and then you go to the next one.
• 23:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you keep going until someone has a majority.
• 23:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now Hannah ended up winning because Troy and
• 24:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, so, but now we can see with the data, right?
• 24:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: We can see who had the most first round votes, who had the most second round votes.
• 24:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's why I think that is probably going to be Troy Jackson, Naravshah, or Shenabel's.
• 24:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'll kind of give you the case for each of them, right?
• 24:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Naravshah's case.
• 24:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't maybe just sketch out who they are.
• 24:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you've given us some of that, but I get some more detail now.
• 24:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: But so Narav Shah's case is that he led the state through COVID.
• 24:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's a career bureaucrat, but he's quite charismatic.
• 24:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: I remember him addressing the state during COVID every day.
• 24:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he's very charismatic.
• 24:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: He inspires a lot of loyalty, I think, within manners, certainly of my wife loved watching him every day, right during COVID, she thought he was great.
• 24:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: like in that's, you know, anecdotal, but that was, you know, kind of how, how I got to know who he was as well.
• 25:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he can reasonably lay claim to having the second most first place votes after Pingray.
• 25:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So he can say, I have all the support.
• 25:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: uh... this is who i am and what i've done and he also can do another thing which he he can he can credibly say i've done a budget town halls around state the minute that he set him he and his camp saw how well uh... platter was doing by doing town halls all around
• 25:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: they started doing it.
• 25:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they're very smart.
• 25:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like their campaign is very smart.
• 25:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's also come out and called Gaza Genocide.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: He has called for Medicare for all.
• 25:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're number progressive positions that he has.
• 25:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even though he's seen as the moderate candidate, the establishment candidate, there are some questions about some of his funding that maybe like,
• 25:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: tied to a pack through a couple of like, you know, different layers down, but, but, you know, for rhetoric, he certainly, you know, sounds the right, it makes the right noises and he has done the campaign, right?
• 26:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's the case for shot.
• 26:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: The case for Jackson.
• 26:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: is that he is the progressive, the labor guy, a genuine working class logger from up in the absolute middle of nowhere, northern Maine.
• 26:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: He has the, yes, so he has the support of labor.
• 26:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: He has the support of a lot of progressives in the Portland area.
• 26:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think he can reasonably claim the mantle of what Planner was doing.
• 26:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that, you know, just as I said with Shaw, like that problem, like the funding and some kind of questions about him, I think the thing about Jackson is, like to kind of the cause about Jackson, are that,
• 26:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's not a great speaker, he's not very fast, like quick on his feet, he has great teamwork around him.
• 26:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to make it.
• 26:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying he's stupid.
• 26:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying that the way that he operates is not quite as quick and as slick as some of these other people.
• 27:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: He does have a pass with some social conservatives that presumably they could use against
• 27:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And finally, Shenabellos, who's a secretary of state, she was the afterpengry was the number one second choice for everybody, right?
• 27:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, I'm not sure exactly how that all would work out, but, you know, essentially it means that of people who were voting for
• 27:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Jackson, Pingree, Shaw, and also Angus, King III, the very, very distant fifth place.
• 27:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Run, who's, I don't think, can to get involved with this at all.
• 27:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But she was the, the kind of the compromise choice for all of these different candidates supporters.
• 27:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that's a very strong case to be made for her.
• 27:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that that's what she could do.
• 27:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's, she's seen as a progressive
• 28:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, I think the number one thing that is going to hurt her, the number one con is probably that she ran against, she's 51 now.
• 28:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: So she ran against Collins 12 years ago when she was 39 and got absolutely destroyed.
• 28:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, you know, I think by like 30 points.
• 28:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now look, this was 2014, right?
• 28:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you remember the the the political landscape in 2014, a little known Democrat going up against a Republican powerhouse in that year was probably going to get blown out.
• 28:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that the DSCC put much money into name.
• 28:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think they kind of just gave that one up.
• 28:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: But still, she's already been beaten by Collins once, so that is something that certainly people can say.
• 28:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Beyond those three, Jordan Moore, I think, who ran in the second district for the primary there that was won by Matt Dunlap, there is Cleveland, I can't remember what his first aim is, he's main beer company owner, he had stepped into the Senate race in the beginning
• 29:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Paige Loud, who is a Native American legislator, who is probably the darkest of dark courses here, just because she has probably the lowest name recognition, but is would definitely be running like a very progressive, very, very left-wing, frankly very left-wing campaign.
• 29:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So those are kind of the six that are there, but the three, I think the governor of one is probably the three main ones.
• 29:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 29:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, my understanding is that this will also be a ranked choice voting.
• 29:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So some of the same sort of dynamics will come into play.
• 29:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: We don't know for sure, but I mean, we don't know for sure.
• 29:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 29:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 29:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would imagine though.
• 29:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, well, it's a convention with delegates.
• 29:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think that they would, I think that they might do as kind of a caught
• 30:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I really don't know how they're gonna do it.
• 30:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that I don't like Jeep.
• 30:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think they know how they're gonna do it Yeah, quite honestly Okay, okay, yeah, so let me see what we should do.
• 30:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'll be fragmented.
• 30:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's all up on the air because I mean We're you're saying earlier about man 20s floating.
• 30:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's very interesting because I mean to my mind if they do have that Then it would benefit there the sort of candidates who are the best that's her coalition building and you know have us or record all that but
• 30:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, we will see, as it sort of progresses.
• 30:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, do you think that being associated with Plotner, we'll be considered a harmful thing going forward or people will just like, you know, because it's fun to add a lot of support in the state.
• 30:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So those things like, okay, this first thing got full of the same way I did.
• 30:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, like it's not, you know, something to be holding against them.
• 30:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Really hard to know right now.
• 30:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: The main GOP is already going after Bellows for her association with planner.
• 31:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I believe they're also going after Jackson.
• 31:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think I just do one thing.
• 31:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think they see Bellows as a bigger threat, but that might just be my unconscious bias in that I think that she's going to win.
• 31:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I would think that she's the biggest threat.
• 31:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: almost always wrong.
• 31:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So who knows?
• 31:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I think that it will be used.
• 31:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: But here's the thing is that they can just flip around and say, well, yeah, and then we force for him while, you know, Susan, people asked you if you were ready to your vote for Brett Kavanaugh as recently as the middle of June.
• 31:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: You said no.
• 31:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know, so I don't know how strong those attacks are going to be.
• 31:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Frankly, if I'm the GOP and I'm Susan Collins, I am absolutely I rate that this story didn't come out a week and a half later before they could do this.
• 32:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm very angry about that, right?
• 32:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I think that they are very upset about it because their chances of retaining the
• 32:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: because she was, she was starting, they were starting to go up.
• 32:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: She has 9.3 million on hand.
• 32:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: He had 100,000.
• 32:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like the super PACs are prepared to put in like $400 million or something like that.
• 32:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, so if we split that 50, 50, it's 200 each.
• 32:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this is going to be the most expensive Senate race that's ever been run in this in this state by a huge version.
• 32:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, I want to underscore something as you say, like a state which like maybe like a million voters, right?
• 32:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So so you're gonna spend like, you know, like the combined two parties like, you know, 400 dollars per voter.
• 32:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 32:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's wild.
• 32:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's wild.
• 32:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's it's it's really crazy.
• 32:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I so I think that what we're probably looking at here is a GOP that is actually kind of scared right now and worried.
• 33:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that they will want the weakest candidate possible, um, you know, I think that like they
• 33:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it mold, you know, that is putting forward a type of politics that is actually quite unpopular, not only with the Democratic base, but see, here's the thing, is that Susan Collins wins because she converts all of these nice, moderate liberal Democratic women in the suburbs, right?
• 33:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they will vote for, um,
• 33:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know say Biden right in 2020 like this would have been by in 2020 but then they'll also vote for her.
• 33:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now other things happen in 2020 was here at Gideon's campaign that we're very bad but we don't have time to get into all that but but she's able to get that support.
• 34:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: That okay so that was six years ago.
• 34:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's happened in the last six years?
• 34:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well Rose gone now.
• 34:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Supreme Court is incredibly just anti-women and, you know, just chipping away at whatever reproductive rights remain, Trump is in office, Trump is.
• 34:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: despised here.
• 34:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I can't, you know, I live in, like I said, living in the metro area, so I live a little bit inland.
• 34:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you go a couple more towns in, it's, it's, it's, they certainly feel a little bit more positively about Trump.
• 34:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: We'll put it that way than they do in, you know, closer to the coast.
• 34:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But, but Trump, I mean, Trump lost by like seven points here.
• 34:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: In 2024, and things have only gotten worse since then, Democrats are really fired up.
• 34:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think that if I'm Collins, I'm worried, and if I'm the Democrats, I want to find the right candidate who's going to be able to fight her on these terms and be able to turn people out.
• 35:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that one of the problems with Gideon in 2020 was that her campaign kind of
• 35:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: to the scent of the god at the ground, all I kind of just kind of dipped at the end and they weren't really able to like maintain any kind of enthusiasm or excitement.
• 35:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I, you know, I think they really, they need to be very, very smart and how they do this.
• 35:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I, I think,
• 35:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: if it were up to me, I would say, you know, someone like, I think running the man might be in the stake in this environment after what just happened.
• 35:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, maybe not.
• 35:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's really hard to tell, but it,
• 35:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that someone like Bellows would probably do the best, but I think the shot could do well as well.
• 36:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, I want to be really clear.
• 36:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not making a judgment on their policy platforms, their politics, you know, what they represent.
• 36:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll say this.
• 36:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: rhetorically, they appear to be where the party is at.
• 36:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if they're really where the party is at, I'm saying rhetorically, they appear to be where the party is at.
• 36:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: if they can run a race that gets there, uh, that's great.
• 36:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I do just want to go back to Mr. Planner here for a second because again, like I said, he is not filed the paperwork yet to withdraw.
• 36:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
• 36:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: day after this air is so people will many of people will be listening to this on Sunday we will find out a funny whether he does this or not.
• 36:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just said they might still be options even if he doesn't file.
• 36:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I do actually think that his the video 11 minute video that he did is worrying in the sense of he shows someone who is not making a lot of anything larger than so.
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: He appears very soft pitying and very aggrieved.
• 37:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, in a way that's like, I think underscores as much as anything his total unfitness for office.
• 37:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I agree, and Morris Katz who is the consultant, who helps Oran Mondani to victory and help planner to victory in the primary.
• 37:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, has said that he will side by Monday, and I checked out with the source that I have in the campaign and that source also said that he's definitely going to do it on Monday.
• 37:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we'll see, you know, it's very possible by the time that this comes out that he's already done it like on Saturday or Friday or some, you know, sometimes on Sunday.
• 37:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: So this whole conversation that we're having here is kind of just all academic.
• 37:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, but, you know, I, I know that you wanted to touch on this, and I know we only have a couple minutes left, but this idea of these consultants coming in kind of
• 37:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, I think that's I mean, I'm glad you mentioned Morris and the cats and the, and I'm done because I think it's actually interesting comparison or to be made in terms of difference.
• 38:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: That I think with Moundami and with the sort of broader New York politics, what you have is a real sort of grassroots organization in place within the form of the DSA.
• 38:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, like, Katz is a consultant he made the, you know, very successful kind of like adds it.
• 38:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm down he did, but it's like, you know, I'm down he and the success that the DSS had had in municipal elections in congressional primaries.
• 38:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Those, those well beyond, like, the political consulting class in his very organic sort of phenomena.
• 38:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think like, you know, like Planner, like I don't want to go to see the organic aspect of his support, which I think is a real phenomenon, which I think we have to, you know, acknowledge and come to terms with, but this whole sort of motto, you know, as is reporting to New York Times, of basically these are headhunters coming in, you know, see this video of Planner thinking, well, you know, this is the guy we can sell, you know, not apparently doing, but let's do diligence, hey, in terms of his background, I think the, you know, to me, to my mind, that's very different.
• 39:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: then a kind of DSM model.
• 39:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I'd be curious if you were thought to this.
• 39:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's absolutely right.
• 39:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I do think that cats is maybe gain a little, a little overly raked over the coals about this because he was not the one who vetted him, Dambarath, and they spent like $6,000 vetting this guy and said, okay, it's fine.
• 39:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the thing about vetting is that, you know, they have to tell you what to look for.
• 39:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's very clear that even now, like, like, planet doesn't think that any of this stuff really happened or that you know, that it's even worth like looking at.
• 39:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, like to what extent do you have?
• 39:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, for, um, for months, I was hearing from people close to planet or that there, that there was some stuff out there, but it was just like, consensual, uh, cake stuff and that, like, you know, that that's all that there was.
• 39:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's probably what he told them.
• 39:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, anyway, uh,
• 40:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that there is a point here where they came in and they were like, hey, we, you know, we want this candidate, we want a candidate that works and we want someone who can speak to the main voter and they found this veteran, well spoken, educated, deep voice, you know, like can really like make the case.
• 40:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think for these policies and I don't think
• 40:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: to deep into it otherwise.
• 40:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think they kind of believed him for what he said.
• 40:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then once he took off, I think that at that point, like you can't stop it.
• 40:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, like he was he was filling.
• 40:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't understand.
• 40:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like after the Tonton cops scandal, he was filling rooms.
• 40:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: They were cheering for him.
• 40:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the thing is because main voters didn't want to feel that they felt like D.C. was stepping in here and stopping them from making their own choice.
• 40:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that is one thing that people in Maine are not going to like at all, right?
• 41:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so they really, really push back on that.
• 41:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: deserve criticism, they deserve to be made fun of, um, they deserve to be, I think, rigorously attacked for, for not doing the vetting.
• 41:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's all true.
• 41:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: To me though, the problem
• 41:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: a very serious scandal that has happened, right?
• 41:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, not that has happened.
• 41:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: The scandal that has come out about something that's very serious, not like not a laughing matter.
• 41:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like using it to score points is like like might feel good in the moment, but if you really look at it like why did plan or do so well, he did so well because the people
• 41:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: because 150,000 of them of Democrats and independence voted for him in the primary because he was filling town halls across state that is why he won, not because people were tricked by consultants.
• 42:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: He won because the message that he was right in the politics that he was right on is something that has broad appeal and we've seen that with Candice that are not as flawed as him right I would say Zoram Andani is the polar opposite I'm like someone who's so squeaky clean that it's almost you know It's like nine day right or you have like AOC or Bernie or
• 42:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: or any number of these progressive lawmakers that are either very, either just very popular within their districts, but also very popular nationally.
• 42:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think that we just have to understand it in that context.
• 42:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And to just say, oh, well, this was like a case of the left not vetting them, like nearer tan and saying the establishment investor candidates, like Eric
• 43:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's ridiculous, but yeah, no, I mean the keys are there at the end and this is the one who has worked with, you know, like Bill Clinton, you know, praised Andrew Cobalt, and you hired Larry Summers to come off with their project 2028.
• 43:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I'm not sure I take her fit in skills.
• 43:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, it's almost the vetting is, I mean, I think we can maybe just agree on this, so it's a very distraction from the main issue, which is, you know, this is a deeply flawed guy who basically lied to people in a very disturbing way.
• 43:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then, on the flip side of it, though, like, did, like, you know, win a very impressive primary because people resonated with his message.
• 43:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So,
• 43:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: the thing to carry forward is the sort of, you know, the politics of people want.
• 43:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Even if they don't want the grenadine now, yeah.
• 43:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I know.
• 43:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm sorry.
• 43:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would just add, we're just one thing, which I think is very positive, which is, uh,
• 44:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like this is, this is a guy who ran on a politics, a movement politics, right?
• 44:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: The minute that this stuff came out, people dropped him instantly, instantly.
• 44:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, don't want that, but did not drop the movement, did not drop the politics.
• 44:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that does show you, like, that there is, like, some...
• 44:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: a level of mercenary political acumen within the left movement that I think is important to be out there.
• 44:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 44:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I mean, you can never be about just a candidate.
• 44:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's a dead end.
• 44:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: So if you get the struggle to use it, I would like to thank once again for being on the program and for this very enlightening talk.
• 44:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 44:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for having me.