Ro Khanna backs Troy Jackson as Platner’s replacement in Maine Senate race

Ro Khanna doesn't waste much time. One minute he's out on the trail with Graham Platner, the oyster farmer turned Senate hopeful who was supposed to be the next big progressive thing. The next, an assault allegation surfaces and Khanna is already onto Troy Jackson like nothing happened. That's not conviction. That's a party discovering it has a vetting problem after the cameras were already rolling.

Maine Democrats are now stuck picking up the pieces of a candidacy that collapsed in real time, in public, with national figures attached to it. Jackson may well be a fine pick on the merits. But the speed of the pivot tells you something about how these campaigns actually get built. Somebody decides a guy fits the moment, the national money and endorsements pile on, and the actual background check happens after the fact, if at all.

Platner wasn't some obscure state house candidate. He was being pitched as a working-class alternative who could win a purple-ish Senate seat, backed by people with real national profiles. That the allegation only came out after he was already the anointed guy raises the obvious question of what exactly Khanna and others were checking before they signed on.

Voters in Maine deserve better than a bench of candidates chosen by national progressives playing musical chairs. Jackson gets to inherit the spotlight now, but the real story here is a party that keeps getting caught flat-footed by its own candidates.