Dems Poised To Pick Another Far-Leftist To Replace Platner

So Maine Democrats had their Platner problem, the guy whose social media history read like a liability generator, and their solution was to swap him out for another far-left labor populist who just happens to have a cleaner paper trail. Troy Jackson didn't win over moderates or reassure anyone worried about the party drifting too far out to sea. He won by running up the score with the same activist base that liked Platner in the first place. That's not a course correction. That's the party picking a candidate who knows how to clear delegate votes instead of one who forgot to delete his old posts.

Susan Collins should be feeling fine about this, and probably is. Maine has elected her again and again precisely because she doesn't fit the mold Jackson represents. A former state Senate president with a long record of pushing hard-left labor and economic positions isn't some fresh face who can paper over that record with a smile. He's been in Augusta long enough that voters already have a sense of who he is, and it's not the moderate, work-with-anybody profile that wins statewide in a state like Maine.

What's telling is how fast his rivals folded once the delegate math became obvious. That's not a party unifying around a strong nominee, it's a party's activist wing steamrolling the field and everyone else falling in line rather than fight a battle they already know they'd lose. National Democrats keep insisting they've learned something from losing swing voters, then keep handing purple states the same kind of candidate.

If Jackson is the answer to the Platner headache, it's a strange kind of relief. Democrats traded a candidate who might implode on his own for one who simply agrees with the people who wanted him gone anyway.