LeT teh VoTeRs DeCiDe

So Graham Platner has a few issues — his Reddit shitposting revealed some fairly ugly stuff, which caused his campaign manager to resign. This might sink his battleship, or he might be able to get past it by saying that it was part of the stress he felt after returning from his tours in Iraq. Only time will tell.

There are a lot of politically engaged Democrats who don’t like Platner and want Janet Mills to win, especially since she’s the annointed candidate of the Democratic establishment, which I guess is still getting some support from some Democrats. Their catchphrase is “the voters in Maine will decide.”

This is obviously true, but how stupid do you need to be to ignore the giant finger that’s been placed on the scale in Maine? Not only did Janet Mills get endorsed by Schumer and the DSCC, they’ve formed a joint fundraising committee with Mills. I’ve only seen this on social media so here’s a screenshot.

The Mills campaign announced that she’s raised $1 million in 24 hours (Platner raised $500K in the same period, according to his campaign). In the current political environment, Platner might well outraise Mills even with the DSCC support, since any Democrat with common sense won’t give to the DSCC, DCCC or DNC.

Still, it’s a big deal to get this level of support from institutional Democrats, and I’m here to say that it’s wrong. If you really believe in letting the voters of Maine decide, shoveling millions into Mills’ campaign via shared fundraising isn’t the way to do it. The ability to fundraise is a key political skill, and if Mills doesn’t have it, that’s something Mainers should know. (My guess is that she can, but this was part of her deal with Schumer to run for the seat — fundraising is a giant pain in the ass and she probably didn’t want to work as hard as she’d have to in order to make this run.)

Let’s not forget the fundraising disaster that was the Sarah Gideon 2020 Senate campaign. She ended that campaign with $14 million in the bank — she literally had millions more donated to her campaign that what she could spend. Still, she lost to Collins. Money isn’t everything, not by a long shot.

I want to add my sincere disclaimer that I like Janet Mills, but I don’t like Schumer interfering in campaigns in fucking October, months before the primary. This party has to get a hell of a lot better at picking candidates who can win, and this ain’t the way.