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The Debate: Giving 'em Hell, Maine Style

Yesterday, eight wannabe Democratic senators from Maine traveled to Portland (the one in Maine, naturally) and debated. In comparison to the painful presidential debates of the last few cycles, it was a remarkably civilized affair (actually, to be precise, two affairs). That could be because these people are not a**holes, and so do not step on each other's speaking time. Or, it could be because the "debate" was really set up like separate Q&A's with the various candidates, with virtually no interaction between them and virtually no follow-ups from the moderators. Or, it could be that culture of restraint and stoicism that New Englanders are known for. We don't know.

We knew that, to avoid putting their thumbs on the scale, the Maine Democratic Party allowed any candidate who formally declared an intent to run to be on stage. What we did not know is that someone—the Maine Democrats, debate host Maine News Now, someone else—decided to divide the field into two groups. The first hour—the big kids' debate—was given over to any candidate who got 20% of the vote in a primary election this year. The second hour—the kiddies' table—was given over to everyone else. We would call that putting your thumb on the scale, stealth edition.

There were five candidates announced for the second hour, though Paige Loud dropped out of the debate and the race at the last minute. And so, hour #2 featured four participants: environmentalist and third-place-finisher-in-the-original-Senate-primary David Costello, former state Rep. Lizzie Dickerson, brewer Dan Kleban and political newbie Ashley Webb. We did not watch the second hour, and will not be writing about the second hour, because none of these people is going to be the nominee, and so it's not a good use of our time or of readers' time. If you want to watch for some reason, the video is here. There are also four people who are official candidates but did not show up to debate, which means that there are twelve candidates in total. That should be a final total, since the deadline has passed and the dust has settled.

The four candidates who have at least some hope of securing the nomination, and who were allowed to participate in the first hour of the debate, are Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former President of the Maine Senate Troy Jackson, former state/federal healthcare official Dr. Nirav Shah, and former congressional aide and current progressive activist Jordan Wood. We list them in that order because that is the order in which they were arranged on stage, alphabetically, with Bellows in the "first" position and Wood in the "fourth." In this year's Democratic gubernatorial primary, Shah (second place), Jackson (third place) and Bellows (fourth place) all got at least 20% of the vote (26.8%, 21.1% and 20.6% in the first round, respectively), which qualified them for the big kids' debate. Wood qualified by virtue of getting 28.9% of the vote (third place) in the primary in ME-02.

The moderators were Maine News Now staffers Rob Caldwell and Phil Hirschkorn. We have no idea what these two gentlemen's personal politics are, but we had the impression that Caldwell was tasked with asking the more "Republican" questions and Hirschkorn the more "Democratic" questions. If any reader cares to watch for themselves before reading our thoughts, here is the video:

It was, in some ways, charmingly not "big time." The moderators, particularly Hirschkorn, were clearly a little nervous. And we don't know exactly how they level candidates' heads for national debates, but it's probably not having them stand on a very visible wooden box, as Bellows was (Shah, too, though Bellows' was considerably larger).

Because the debate was structured kind of like a four-person job interview, it's probably clearest to break it down like this (again, in order of the candidates' position on stage):

Shenna Bellows
Pitch: "I have fought the bad man in D.C. (over voter records). I will keep fighting the bad man. Did I mention that he's a very bad man?"

Key Issue: Tax the rich. This was Bellows' solution to virtually every domestic issue she was asked about.

Overall Rating: 0/10. Bellows delivered a terrible performance. Just in terms of her presentation, she was wooden, halting, and seemed to be alternating between "this is my pre-scripted talking point" and "I am just going to talk and yet say nothing." Her answers were also noticeably lacking in substance. For example, when the candidates were asked what they would do to save Social Security, she said:
There's a story that's been told for a long time and that's there's not enough money in Washington, not enough for universal childcare, not enough for universal healthcare, not enough for Social Security, it's gonna run out, and that resonates with people who grew up like Troy and I did because I've lived a lot of my life feeling like there's never enough or I'm never enough. I'm gonna run out if... If you know what it's like, you know what I mean, and, and quite frankly, according to the stats, most Mainers feel that way now.
This particular answer was so lacking in substance, it was one of the rare occasions where the moderators did follow up: "All right, I'm going to jump in because you've gone on 35 seconds and you didn't give me any specifics."

There were also issues where Bellows seemed to have no idea what she was talking about. When the candidates were asked about Venezuela, she declared that Congress and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) had done nothing to stop Trump. The moderator observed that, in fact, Collins had voted "yes" on a resolution to rein Trump in, and Bellows had to concede that Collins had indeed voted that way, and then declared, "I won't speak on something before I know what I want to say," despite the fact that she had just done that very thing. To take another example, the candidates were asked about getting rid of Daylight Saving Time, and Bellows said that the issue came up in the state legislature, but... she couldn't remember how she voted.

Troy Jackson
Pitch: "I'm Joe Sixpack; I understand the issues of blue-collar folk because I'm a logger, and my pappy was a logger, and my grandpappy was a logger, and my great-grandpappy was a logger, and my great-great-grandpappy was a logger."

Key Issue: Social class. Nearly every issue that came up, Jackson framed in terms of working people vs. the rich, with Collins an "elitist" who is fighting for "them" and not for "you."

Overall Rating: 5/10. If you assume he was the heavy favorite going in, then he certainly didn't do anything to torpedo himself. And he was generally folksy and likable. However, his answers were often mumbled, and also strung together thoughts in a non-sequitur, word-salad fashion. It wasn't as bad, on that front, as Trump at his worst, but it was bad enough that if Jackson was Joe Biden, the media would be freaking out today. Truth be told, the "person" we kept thinking of while he was speaking was Boomhauer from King of the Hill.

Nirav Shah
Pitch: "I'm the most electable candidate."

Key Issue: ICE. Every candidate mentioned ICE, and the recent shooting of Joan Sebastían Durán Guerrero, multiple times. But Shah hit on that issue in his opening remarks, and came back to it time and again, referring to the agency as "Donald Trump's masked marauders."

Overall Rating: 9/10. Shah clearly delivered the best performance of the night. He tripped over his tongue once or twice, but he was far and away the most comfortable person on that stage, and his answers were clear and on point. He was also strongest in terms of his knowledge of the issues and of civics, and mentioned a number of details that the other candidates did not seem to know (e.g., he noted that the U.S. already has term limits for some judges, like the ones who serve on federal bankruptcy courts).

Jordan Wood
Pitch: "I'm not Graham Platner. I knew before anyone else he was no good."

Key Issue: Corruption, particularly the corruption of one Donald J. Trump.

Overall Rating: 6/10. Other than Shah, Wood was the most comfortable on stage, and did the best job of expressing himself. That said, he was very obviously reading his opening statement from a piece of paper. We recognize that this debate came together quickly, but... c'mon? You can't memorize 150 words, Jordan? Wood was also the candidate, other than Bellows, most likely to give non-answer answers to the moderators' questions. He had no specific ideas about how to reform ICE, or about how to rein in the Supreme Court, to take two examples.

To round things out, here are five additional observations we have:

Surprise Issue: We have, of course, been watching closely to see what issues the Democrats are likely to run on in 2026. After all, they have something of an embarrassment of riches to choose from. The issue that came up surprisingly frequently last night was... Robert F. Kennedy Jr. While we're not stunned that the HHS Secretary and his MAHA stuff might become a political football, we would not have ranked this among the ten most likely issues for the blue team to hammer on in 2026. Perhaps it was just coincidence, or perhaps this is peculiar to Maine. Alternatively, maybe the debate was a bellwether.
Surprise Non-Issue: At the same time, evidence has been mounting that the Democrats plan to make corruption a central theme in 2026. Dwight D. Eisenhower had K1C2 in 1952 (Korea, Communism and Corruption), and the Democrats could well have I2C1 in 2026 (Iran, ICE and Corruption). But while Iran and ICE made many an appearance during the debate, the word "corruption" was only uttered eight times, and seven of those were the same candidate (Wood).
Trump, Trump, Trump: While corruption, specifically, might not have gotten as much attention as we might have expected, criticism of Donald Trump was the most prominent theme of the entire debate. They mentioned him, by name or by office, 61 times by our count, which means he came up more than once a minute (the debate was just shy of an hour). In the 2016 post mortems, the Hillary Clinton campaign was blamed for relying too much on "Donald Trump bad." Maybe that was an unsound conclusion, and the Mainers have figured that out. Maybe that was a sound conclusion, and the Mainers are at risk of making a big mistake. Maybe it was a sound conclusion back then, but an unsound conclusion now, what with another 6+ years of bad behavior from Trump. We should note that the candidates mentioned Susan Collins nearly as often (50 times), which is obviously appropriate, given that she's the actual opponent.
Platner: By and large, the candidates wanted nothing to do with Graham Platner. The very first question was about which of his policies the candidates like. And once they were through that portion of the debate, it was almost like he never existed. He only got mentioned twice more, with both mentions coming within 10 seconds of each other near the very end. Perhaps the candidates do not want to remind voters of that fiasco. Perhaps they don't want to risk alienating his base. Perhaps both.
Left Field: The four candidates were all quite lefty in their rhetoric, particularly as regards taxes and funding for Israel. And none of them objected when the moderators referred to them as "four progressives." The only one among them who occasionally veered into more centrist territory was Shah. One has to presume that their lefty-ness is due, in part, to the fact that they need to secure the support of 300 or so people who come mostly from the activist wing of the Democratic Party. One also has to presume that a partial pivot is coming, once the "primary" is over. That said, Collins' oppo research team certainly got some useful clips for future commercials last night.

In general, outside of giant screw-ups, debates don't usually move the needle much. In the unusual circumstances that are in effect in Maine right now, however, the debates are pretty much the whole campaign. The candidates aren't really going to have much of a chance to press the flesh or speechify in all (or most) of Maine's 16 counties. So, this debate could be considerably more important than is usually the case. And if so, then Shah helped himself, Jackson treaded water, and the other two failed to carpe diem.

The candidates will have one more chance; next Friday, there will be a second debate, this one hosted by CNN. That one will be in Bangor, so get your Roger Miller records ready. The cable outlet has announced:

The two-hour debate will take place at 8 p.m. ET. The candidates will take questions from CNN anchors Jake Tapper and Dana Bash as well as Bangor Daily News Political Editor Michael Shepherd. There will be a live audience including some of the delegates who will vote to decide the nominee along with Maine primary voters.

Note there is nothing there about which candidates will be invited, or whether there will once again be two debates—one for the varsity, and one for the others. Maybe even CNN doesn't know yet. (Z)

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