Platner holds commanding lead over Mills in Maine Senate race: Poll

This is why I have a strong preference for your phrasing “perfect be the enemy of the good” as opposed to “the lesser evil” framing that theoretically expresses the same idea. I don’t accept that the Democrats being in power makes things worse. Moving in the correct direction consistently and avoiding the historical setbacks caused by GOP administrations would amount to a huge amount of progress.

Probably not an original, or even good, analogy. But I've been picturing it as the Republicans are like a dog sled team. Each dog might have their own special interest, but they all pull the sled (their party) in unison to get to the goal. The Democrats sled is pulled by cats.

While I agree, the establishment has a duty to not let the burn it down coalition get as big as it's gotten. Being wholly out of touch and offering basically nothing for years and years is a significant problem. And when I say offering basically nothing, I mean no actual change. Things ***must*** fundamentally change.

Biden winning the 2020 primaries was all the fuel the DNC needed to feel they didn't need to evolve at all. Most of the candidates were neolibs (all but 3, and only 2 of those were even possible winners), and people ended up coalescing around the most old guard of them all (mostly due to Clyburn endorsing him in SC). And then you had Warren, one of the aforementioned 3, picking up Hillary's old campaign team and immediately tacking right in the primaries killing her chances. Only Williamson (who had no chance) and Sanders (who also had an uphill battle) kept true to their messages. And Williamson wasn't exactly pushing for meaningful systemic change either. Edit: wrong year

The problem is the Dems abandoned many of their more left leaning allies in the name of being more moderate or centrist. I’ve voted Dem in every election, lesser of two evils and all that, but as someone way more left than the Dem party I can’t be mad that people are over their shit. They have inherent disdain for anything grassroots in their own party and they’re so out of touch they constantly blame their own base for abysmal turnout when they actively ignore the bases wants in terms of candidates. I’ve been asking this question since 2016 or so, what are you supposed to do as a left leaning voter? If you’re in a two party system and one party basically relies on you but actively disparages anything you want from the deal in return how do you participate? If one group is committed to being the worse of two options and the second option just says “perfect now I don’t have to change anything despite the clear problems happening all around us” how does that not start to feel like “both sides”? I know there’s a huge difference and imo most politicians are more on the side of republicans than the people but that’s beside the point. Most people aren’t engaged politically at least at any level of depth and fewer of those people are extremely educated about the subjects. If you think the republicans are the bad guys and you constantly vote dem just to watch them be like Charlie Brown getting the football pulled away repeatedly for 10 years, or all the times they own goal themselves or disrespect their constitutes I can see how it gets real “controlled opposition” feeling and apathy sets in. I’m not advocating throwing in the towel but the Dems have mismanaged the entire political landscape and its surrounding apparatuses like the media for something like 15 years. I don’t have a lot of confidence they’re gonna pull us out of this regardless. Not because I think they’re incompetent, although I do. Not even just because they’re feckless in general. I don’t think they have a shot because they’re backed into a corner by corporate resources and due to that it’s rare you hear them say the truth. If you can’t even acknowledge that 2020 and project 2025 are essentially coup attempts to change the culture and power structures of the country and that everyone involved that can be connected to them money or otherwise needs to be jailed, then how can I expect you to fight against it? I don’t even think most Dems can even process that the people who are their “colleagues” and associates are trying to create a sort of a techno-feudalist religious surveillance state that would make Orwell spin in his grave, why would I expect them to do well in that situation? TLDR I vote for them and try to educate people but I don’t got a lot of faith in the leadership or even most of the party to correctly respond both to the current threat nor to the clamoring of their voters. I think we’re in for rough times.

They sent me a survey, I replied telling them to hand over the reigns to more progressive-minded people. A month later, they sent me the same survey, I sent the same reply. A month later, another survey. That time I told them to f*** off and that my answers weren't changing. A month later, another survey, I didn't reply, and no surveys since. They will just keep asking the same questions until they get the answers they want rather than the answers they're given.

Shoehorned candidates lose. That's why Hilary lost, that's why Kamala lost. Neither had truly competitive primaries. And internet commentators telling voters they are sexist or racist for not falling in line behind uninspiring candidates is just a cherry on top.

Where does that 200 figure come from? I don’t see it after a few searches. Thanks.

All of the corruption, none of the savvy.

Biden was also the most progressive president in a long while, even more than Obama. While Harris may not have been the ideal progressive candidate that we want, she would have moved in the right direction. I still believe the whole "Harris is not progressive enough" movement was in part at least, a republican/russian ploy as well. They tried the same thing with Kat Abughazaleh just a few days ago.

Fetterman was Bernie endorsed.

The reddit comments were 13+ years ago. People can change a lot in that kind of time frame, and he's been willing to take accountability for it.

Jacobin did a deep dive on his entire reddit history, apparently 30K comments and posts, and they arrived at a very different conclusion about Platner based on that history. You should google their article on that, it paints a very different picture of him than what the cherrypickers paint here.

Maybe. But my super liberal grandmother was always loyal to Collins for saving a bunch of military bases back in the day even with the all her recent decisions. She has a weird hold on a lot of Mainers that polls seem to miss

Yeah, and tbf Gideon was much closer to winning than any of the prior couple of races

A commanding money advantage she didn't use optimally. She had like 15-20mil left over and her messaging sucked. "I'm against trump and not collins" is not a campaign.

It's also textbook conservatism, wonder why it doesn't resonate with voters?

The whole statewide race line is tired, too. She barely took Maine’s second district against Paul LePage, who isn’t nearly as strong a candidate as people have made him out to be. True, it’s a conservative-leaning district, but LePage statewide has benefited from third parties. He’s not a strong overall candidate. Susan Collins is. Mills is extremely unpopular among Republicans and she’s not peeling off Republican votes from Collins. Furthermore, if moderates wanted an old moderate boomer who has been in office since Calvin Coolidge, they’ll just stick with Collins. But if Chuck Schumer was good at strategy, we wouldn’t be as screwed as a nation right now.

Yes. It’s basically a referendum on purity tests and growth as an individual. I think 80% of men who aren’t far left would had many things in their past around their early to mid 20’s that would be considered problematic In modern politics. I know I sure as shit do. The question is, can we accept people become better once they get educated and learn? I think Platner is worth the gamble over an 80 year old. Worst case scenario he’s not much better than Collins. Collins says the right “moderate” but is not a moderate. She votes party line when it really matters. She’s a MINO

This is actually true. Plenty of mundane but still important things Fetterman votes the party line on. Now what is inexcusable is why he's allowed to be on committees.