Don’t trust that the media is ever your friend, but if you’re at an event to record and propagate information, even for a biased political purpose, you’re media. Trying to restrict that to only validated independent media groups is both not in line with the concept of freedom of the press and not a good idea for our side. We have lots of single-person “media” attendees telling the story of oppressive government action.

71% of the party voted for progressive Platner in Maine. His politics got the most votes ever in a Democratic primary. We don’t have to worry about nationwide definitions of ‘base’ in this instance to argue about who deserves special deference from party leaders.

And I have a hard time believing this piece would EVER get promoted when people talk about “black voters are the base”, which is almost always only used to justify white centrists rather than, say, police reform. But for some reason it’s important to establish when progressives in 3% black Maine win a landslide and then ask for recognition by their own party leadership.

The reality is that party leadership has basically never represented any of these bases. The demographic that leadership represents extremely well is big money donors. Judging by leadership, that’s the real base. They’re the group that must always be catered to and whose loss they’d see as a 5 alarm fire.

Officials say. So it’s a worthless statement by known liars. Their credibility isn’t just damaged. It’s non-existent.

Almost nothing in voting is done by executive agencies so the vote stealing impact of this is going to be more indirect.

Maybe destroying this agency is to try to give a parallel fascist agency validity. Or maybe he thinks he can nominate Jared and Ivanka as Democrats. Or maybe he just doesn’t want states to get federal election aid so the system is more vulnerable.

I’ve said he’s responsible for his harms to others while drunk because even if impairment removes his self-control, drinking caused that to happen. But that’s not because I think raping (or murdering) is someone’s true self and they’re basically just stuck being a fundamentally bad person. They should pay for the consequences of their actions, dedicate themselves consciously to never reoffending, and then never get drunk enough to lose control, because that’s a consequence of drinking.

I don’t think most people exhibit personal growth (at least initially) by actually changing their fundamental impulses but by dedicating themselves to controlling those that are harmful. And maintaining that control is part of being committed to it. Maybe over time that changes the impulses themselves, but it’s curbing the impact to others that matters morally.

Why would being blackout drunk reveal your true desire to rape and not your true desire to consent? Or are you saying that being blackout drunk is not impaired enough to negate consent?

This sounds like you think non-consent from alcohol only occurs when you’re practically incapable of standing or speaking coherently (and thus would be incapable of rape). Basically a step away from just being unconscious. That’s a very expansive view on what qualifies as healthy consent, which is weird to pair with a concern about muddying the waters.

“One affordable home” is more than most politicians have produced. He had a strong interview with the BBC.

By definition, if you’re holding yourself back from doing something you don’t think it’s ok. It doesn’t change that you’re responsible for harm you cause by putting yourself in a position where your sober mind is no longer holding yourself back, but following this logic leads to things like saying drunk women can consent because they’re just holding their true selves back when sober.

I don’t think so, but the victim thought he was blackout drunk, so the only reliable choice available to his unimpaired mind would be never to get that drunk again. But he’d made posts (in 2013) about how no one should drink so much they regret their choices, so if it were as simple as thinking responsible people shouldn’t drink to that point it never would have happened.

But the end of Platner’s campaign was a massive relief to Democrats who saw their tough road to retake control of the Senate crumbling if he continued on against Collins in one of the most critical races on the map.

Nothing that’s been done by anyone in Maine in the last week has given this Democrat any relief. I was 1000 times more optimistic with the Kamala switch than this train wreck.

This article is very establishment-biased and presents things like the adults are back in charge and any problems are because Platner was being antagonistic to the party leaders rather than the leaders themselves lobbing accusations through the press and putting personal desires over party unity. The accusations that took him down may not be the conspiracy, but the Maine Democratic party leadership is definitely conspiring to maximize their personal power over what’s good for the state and party.

They built a nominating process where insiders get to pick all the voters while showing zero interest in engaging the campaign that won an overwhelming primary victory. He was right not to trust them!

It shouldn’t have come this far. It should have been revealed as soon as he became a leading candidate. We don’t owe gratitude for putting things off until it would throw the fate of the whole country into chaos rather than just be “oh well, obviously he shouldn’t be chosen”. No one handled this well and now we’re all going to suffer for it.

And just to make it clear, this is Platner’s fault first and foremost and his selfishness is leagues worse than anyone else, but fuck, people are dying because of votes Susan Collins made and everyone involved in this fiasco treated it with the seriousness of a small town drama.

The RCV aspect of their primary would also be very valuable, since it sounds like there will be a lot of options and little time to coalesce.

The selection will be made by 600 delegates to a convention, 500 selected by the county committees and 100 for the state committee members. It’s entirely insider chosen.

Devon Murphy-Anderson, the former finance director for the Florida Democratic Party and cofounder of Mi Vecino, which works to activate Latino voters in Florida…

I don’t know how a blond woman named Devon Murphy-Anderson didn’t crush it at activating Latino voters.

She’s also the one who opened up a public feud with Platner’s team about the replacement process. Is she actual just out to sabotage the Democratic party?

A poll would matter if the people at the convention were voters. They’re not. They’ll be selected by the county committees. Mills might be a step too far, but they’ll sub in a bland moderate.

It is not. The replacement will be selected by a delegates to a convention, 500 selected by county-level Democratic committees and 100 for the state committee members. So a fully insider selected faux-electorate with bonus superdelegates just in case.

https://politicalwire.com/2026/07/08/maine-democrats-ready-convention-if-platner-exits/

She was his selected choice for the position (in the primary). A vote still took place, but it wasn’t because she ran an independent campaign and just happened to be paired with him.

Shitty paper (NYPost) but it has an unencumbered story making it clear that she was his running mate in the primary, not just the general.

https://nypost.com/2014/09/01/cuomo-may-dump-hochul-fearing-a-tim-wu-primary-win/

It’s possible for the lieutenant governor to be elected in the primary without being the governor’s choice, but that’s not what happened with Hochul.

People say a lot of stupid things. There’s a reason the vice president is no longer whoever comes in second. Should the 2024 candidate have been Marianne Williamson?

This is not the situation RCV handles. RCV handles if your vote doesn’t get a majority. It’s never about eliminating the top vote getter or selecting a successor.

If the scandal broke before the election people could have changed their votes and if they didn’t would have paid attention and ranked lower options, but it didn’t.

Uh, when Cuomo resigned in shame his self-selected lieutenant governor took over. She got reelected and is still running the state.