Just take a trip down memory lane to last October<\/a>. Even my most recent, more positive assessment<\/a> of the guy (who wasn’t my first choice but I don’t choose the candidate, Maine voters do) mentioned the possibility of there being “more skeletons in his closet.” It was not precisely a difficult call.<\/p>\n There’s been pretty credible accusations of sexual assault against him before that for some reason were overlooked by voters. The latest news, which pretty much unequivocally describes a rape, is apparently too much. There’s been a huge<\/em> wave of former supporters denouncing him and asking him to drop out.<\/p>\n If he drops out, of course he can’t win. If he stays in (and he’s self-centred enough that he just might), he also can’t win. Collins will survive another term.<\/p>\n Suppose he drops out. Then what? The law says the party gets to choose his replacement. Which probably means they pick Mills. She’s who they wanted in the first place, and she got around 20% in the primary (finishing second after Platner) despite having suspended her campaign.<\/p>\n Suppose they don’t pick Mills. They will pick someone equally uninspiring. This is the Democratic Party establishment we are talking about, after all.<\/p>\n Finally, even if, by some miracle, the party elite manages to pick an actually good candidate, it probably won’t matter. This whole fiasco has irreparably damaged their brand in this race.<\/p>\n It’s the progressives’ fault. It was the Left that fell in love with Platner, piled the endorsements on him, and kept the endorsements even when the skeletons in his closet started coming to light. There were other candidates in the primary besides Platner and Mills. At least one of them was a progressive. Could have (and should have) backed someone else.<\/p>\n This whole situation is the converse of the recent NYC mayoral race. Then, it was the Establishment who damaged their own cause by backing flawed candidates like Cuomo and Adams. Just like there were better progressive candidates in the Maine primary, there were better establishment ones in the NYC primary.<\/p>\n It was wrong for the Establishment to blame the Left then, and it is wrong for the Left to blame the Establishment now.<\/p>\n Yes, it’s not fair that the Establishment gets to bat last on this one by nominating Platner’s replacement, should he drop out. Well, boo hoo hoo. Life isn’t fair. Part of being an insurgent movement challenging the status quo is by definition the fact that you don’t get the status quo advantages. Your job is to win despite that. If you can’t, you are not up to your historic mission.<\/p>\n The solution is to choose better candidates, ones that don’t self-immolate like this one just did. Pick a Mamdani next time, not a Platner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Told You So Just take a trip down memory lane to last October. Even my most recent, more positive assessment of the guy (who wasn’t my first choice but I don’t choose the candidate, Maine voters do) mentioned the possibility of there being “more skeletons in his closet.” It was not precisely a difficult call. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6971"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6972,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6971\/revisions\/6972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}He Can’t Win<\/h3>\n
The Democrats Can’t Win That Seat<\/h3>\n
This Is Not the Establishment’s Fault<\/h3>\n
It’s Not Fair, but It Doesn’t Matter<\/h3>\n