You'll Never Believe What a Bangor Daily News Op-Ed Told Maine Voters to Do in November

The timing tells you everything you need to know. Graham Platner didn't step aside because two women came forward with allegations of abuse and rape. He stepped aside because Democratic strategists ran the numbers against Susan Collins and didn't like what they saw. That's not a redemption story, that's a math problem, and the Bangor Daily News op-ed asking Maine voters to move on in November is basically asking them to pretend they didn't watch it happen in real time.

What's strange is how little shame there is in the sequencing. If the allegations had actually mattered to party leadership, Platner would have been gone the week they surfaced. Instead he stuck around long enough for pollsters to confirm he was a lost cause against an incumbent Republican, and only then did the exits start clearing. Voters aren't stupid. They can tell the difference between a party protecting women and a party protecting a Senate seat, and Maine just got a pretty clean demonstration of which one was actually happening.

Collins isn't universally loved even in her own party, but she's a known quantity who wins tough races, and Democrats in Maine apparently decided a credibly accused candidate wasn't worth the risk of losing to her. Fine, that's a strategic call they're allowed to make. What they don't get to do is dress it up as accountability and then lecture the rest of us through an op-ed about doing the right thing in November. Pick a lane. Either the allegations mattered or the polling did, and everyone watching this unfold already knows which one it was.