The official line from right-wing commentators on the subject of replacing Graham Platner as the Democratic Senate nominee seems to be that it was a backroom deal brokered by a small handful of “elites.”

Well, I’m not an elite or a Democratic Party insider (unless being on approximately 500 email lists all asking you for $35 is being an insider). All anyone who wanted to participate in the process of electing delegates to go to a convention to vote on a replacement candidate had to do was participate in a meeting of their county’s Democratic committee, and all you had to do to attend the meeting and both run for delegate and vote for delegates was to be a registered Democrat in the county you live in. I know because I did it. 

I followed my local Democratic county party on Facebook and signed up for its email list. I soon received a link to put my name and address in for them to check against my voter registration. A day or two later, I was confirmed as a registered Democratic voter in Androscoggin County.

From there I was able to register as both an attendee of the county meeting and as a candidate for delegate to the Bangor convention, and I did all of this from my phone, some of it while nursing my son. (I did not get elected as a delegate.) 

Androscoggin County’s meeting was virtual, via what I assume was a very large Zoom. York County’s meeting had both in-person and virtual options, which my mom really liked — she ended up not having to go in person but she appreciated having the option in case she needed assistance voting.

Fortunately, my Democratic county meeting was the day before hers so she came over to see how the online voting worked and also see her grandson. (Mostly the grandson.) Other than a short letter from the Maine Democratic Party chairman read aloud, there was no speechifying, which I found to be a massive improvement over traditional caucuses.

We were kept apprised of time and one of the party volunteers kept popping on to say voting wasn’t until 3 and if we wanted to walk away from our screens to do stuff until then we could. I appreciated the heads-up; it allowed me to put Sonny down for naptime before voting from my couch.

I’m grateful that our county meeting was virtual; my wife was working on that weekend so if it had been in-person, as the mother of a baby, I would have had to arrange childcare, miss out or bring him along. (My mom said I should bring him along and for sure I would get voted delegate if I had a baby strapped to my chest. I think she just knew she was on call for childcare.) I didn’t see any conspicuous elites on the Zoom call. I did see a couple of guys in Hawaiian shirts. 

I think the Maine Democratic Party did as good a job as it could have done given the wild circumstances. These folks, mostly volunteers, had to come up with a fair, equitable and accessible process to find a new Senate nominee on a two-week deadline. It literally had never been done before.

There was no game plan in the charter; they were building the plane while they were flying it (something that was obvious in some spots: my mom was at first notified that her county meeting would be in person before they later added a virtual option).

Plus they had the political press of America breathing down the back of their neck. I’m glad Troy Jackson ended up with the nomination — while I had wanted him to be governor, I’d be just as happy with him in the Senate! — and I think everyone who participated in this process should be proud of themselves. Although I hope we don’t have to do it again. Or at least maybe with more than two weeks notice next time. 

On July 25, after the nominating convention in Bangor, Susan Collins’ official campaign sent out an email saying Chuck Schumer (the Senate minority leader from New York) “just handpicked Troy Jackson to run for Maine’s Senate seat. While Schumer pulls the strings from behind closed doors in Washington, he’s pushing a radical, rubber-stamp candidate onto Mainers.” 

This email pissed me off for two reasons. One is the barely veiled antisemitism in the idea of a powerful Jewish man secretly pulling strings behind the scenes. A tired old trope from a tired old senator. But the second thing that pissed me off is how disrespectful it was to Maine Democrats.

Do you really think if Chuck Schumer — or Nancy Pelosi, or AOC, or whoever the right wing is supposed to be scared of this week — had any power whatsoever over Maine Democrats, this situation would have even arisen in the first place? Absolutely the heck not.

If the national party had any control of Maine, Graham Platner would still be out on a boat somewhere and Janet Mills would be shaking hands and eating at diners on the campaign trail. The rise and fall of Graham Platner was driven by Mainers and by God it was Mainers who got together and worked their tails off to salvage this situation. 

The campaign communication also claims, hilariously, that “the Radical Left has an endless supply of dark money.” Girl, I wish. If that was true, we’d have universal healthcare by now and I’d be making six figures on the opinion pages of the New York Times.

Alas, we live in the real world, where everything is expensive and I’ve eaten beans for 30% of my meals this week. Could someone please point the endless radical money spigot in my general direction, ideally before we need to redo the roof?