Dem
47
GOP
53
As long as we are on the subject of Graham Platner, and the Senate race he was compelled to abandon, the two major-party candidates in Maine appear to be settling on their strategies for the roughly 100-day sprint that has been set up by the oysterman's decline and fall.
Starting with the incumbent, Susan Collins and her people think that Democratic nominee Troy Jackson offers a veritable smorgasbord of possibilities. They plan to attack him as a flip-flopper and a "career politician" who loses a lot of elections. He's also a socialist, a person with anger problems and an illegitimate nominee (like Kamala Harris). Also—and here is an example of Republicans trying to be "down with the kiddies," but not really getting it—they plan to hammer on Jackson's lack of "rizz."
We are sure that GOP operatives have done plenty of focus grouping, but we're rather unimpressed by much of this list. It is, for example, somewhat difficult to be both a "career politician" and someone who loses a lot of elections. It is also rather rich for five-term senator Collins, or any of her surrogates, to speak disdainfully about career politicians. We also doubt the efficacy of the "illegitimate nominee" bit, since it's not Jackson's fault that Platner dropped out, and since there was a process (as opposed to a coronation, as was basically the case with Harris). More broadly, however, we wonder if the Collins campaign is about to fall victim to the error of the Clinton 2016 campaign, and to spend too much time harping on the weaknesses of the opposition, in an unfocused way. If the best a five-term senator can do is to make her campaign about how bad the other nominee sucks, then at least pick one or two things and stay laser-focused on those.
And speaking of laser-focus, that brings us to the strategy of Troy Jackson's campaign. He plans to hammer on two main themes: (1) "Collins is a phony who lied about serving only two terms, and who claims to be 'concerned' when she really isn't, whereas I am genuine" and (2) "Collins is an establishment politician who forgot she works for the people, whereas I am a populist who cares about the little guy." This strikes us as a more effective battle plan than the one Team Collins is working on.
If you would like to see a sample of the Jackson Plan is in action, the campaign just released its first ad:
Did you realize that Jackson used to be a logger, and that he comes from a family of loggers? Hard to believe that hasn't come up before.
Over the weekend, incidentally, a couple of skeletons—though that may be too strong a word—emerged from Jackson's closet. First, a conservative publication in Maine alleged that Lana Pelletier, his longtime partner, and the mother of his two children, is his second cousin. It is not entirely clear that this is true, or that Jackson and Pelletier knew, even if it is true. Beyond that, however, it's neither illegal nor taboo to have a romantic relationship with a second cousin.
The other skeleton is even less skeleton-y. CNN has been digging through social media for dirt, as they did with Platner, and they came up with this: More than a decade ago, Jackson created a burner social media account, under the screen name "Canadians for LePage," that he (Jackson) used to troll then-governor Paul LePage (R). Will this be a bug for potential Jackson voters, or will it be more of a feature? In any event, if this, the second-cousin thing and the water-bottle incident are the dirtiest dirt that has emerged, it suggests that Jackson is probably pretty squeaky clean.
There still hasn't been much polling of the race. The only survey so far is the University of New Hampshire poll, which had Jackson at 49% and Collins at 46%. That's within the margin of error of course, but Democrats have to be thrilled with that as a starting point. It's certainly an affirmation that dumping Platner was not instantly fatal. We presume there will be more polling in the next few weeks, though it's true there aren't that many pollsters that specialize in Maine. What's the deal, Quinnipiac? Hamden, CT, is only 150 miles or so from Maine. (Z)