Janet Mills Basks in the Ephemeral Glory of Someone Else’s Totenkopf Moment

By Sam Patten

An old Maine saying counsels “if you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.”

If any real stock is to be put in the results of a push poll floated over the weekend, the same unpredictability applies to the fickleness of Democrat voters in the state.

According to the little-known SoCal Strategies, Gov. Janet Mills now leads Graham Platner by five points in the primary race to decide who will challenge incumbent Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) next year by a 41:36 spread.

One week before Halloween, the ghouls and goblins on Mills’ campaign team worked feverishly to project any evidence the official pick of the Democratic National Senatorial Committee was not as far out of the race as UNH Pine Tree State poll suggested she was on October 23, pegging her support at an anemic 24 percent to Platner’s 58.

On Saturday, they slipped into the sphere their latest poll showing her ahead. The survey asked respondents: “Graham Platner was recently revealed to have a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol. Knowing this, who would you vote for him in the Dem senate primary?”

In other words, her lead was “pushed” in more or less the same way people in Augusta and around the state have become used to being pushed around over the past seven years. Expect more of this in the months ahead.

What if Platner fielded a poll asking Mills’ supporters if they’d still back her after learning her brother Peter is in league with the Chinese mafia, facilitating the sale of distressed Maine properties to foreigners who are themselves pushing Mainers out of the medicinal cannabis market – how would her feeble lead hold then?

The American Association of Political Scientists scorns push polls, but when Nazis are involved all bets must be off. Still, as of Monday, Maine media outlets – even the ones who received generous funding from the Mills administration in years past – have been leery about trumpeting these results because they are, well, fishy.

At the same time, it is entirely fair to suspect that Platner’s once massive lead could itself be something of a bubble, kind of like the smaller ones emitted with less notice during oysters’ shell formation process. Still, I suspect fresh and young may trump tired and old in the addled minds of Democratic voters desperate for something and someone in which/whom to believe.

Even in the SoCal poll, Platner still maintains a strong lead with Democrat voters under the age of 30. The bad news for the political newcomer is that this is Maine, which is demographically the oldest state in America.

If Platner now begins to challenge Mills on her record, there’s a solid chance he might start winning back some seniors – even the ones old enough to remember what actual Nazis look like.

Remember, we’re in a weird moment in Maine politics. Nirav Shah is now running for the Democrat nomination for governor as is another out-of-stater named Bush is for the GOP nod. It’s kind of a free-for-all out there.

And the spooky season has just begun. If your phone rings and you think it might be a pollster, before you answer remember to put on your mask.

Big Sister is watching.