Maine Senate Candidates Claim They’re Just Like Platner — But Entirely Different
The Intercept
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Summary
Candidates entering the Maine Senate race after Graham Platner suspended his campaign following a rape allegation are walking a fine line between distancing themselves from the disgraced candidate and embracing his base, which they’ll need to beat Sen. But they run the risk of alienating Platner’s energized base if they distance themselves too much from his policy commitments such as fighting military spending, ending the genocide in Gaza, advocating for Medicare for All, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and strengthening protections for unions. Brewery co-founder Dan Kleban , who dropped out of the Maine Democratic Senate primary and endorsed Gov. He told The Intercept that those criticisms are a mischaracterization of his record. “Critics who are suggesting that this is a newfound policy position, they are putting politics over the facts,” Shah said. Asked if he would echo Platner’s call to abolish ICE (immigration enforcement agency) outright, Shah said the agency is “out of control” and “cannot continue to exist” in its current form. “Whether we reform ICE, whether we disband it and start from scratch, or whether we transfer their duties to CBP (border protection agency), ICE, as it currently is constituted, cannot continue to exist,” he said. Like Shah, Jackson and Bellows are now doing their best to prove to Platner’s base that they will carry out his policy vision . While Platner was a vocal critic of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Jackson faced criticism for not mentioning Israel or Gaza in his Senate launch on Wednesday. Susan Collins in 2014 and losing by more than 35 percentage points, Bellows was elected to the state Senate in 2016. By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use . Duckworth and her Senate colleague Dick Durbin called on Shah to resign in 2018 over his handling of a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak at a veterans’ facility.
From the source
Candidates entering the Maine Senate race after Graham Platner suspended his campaign following a rape allegation are walking a fine line between distancing themselves from the disgraced candidate and embracing his base, which they’ll need to beat Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in November. As of Friday, at least six candidates have officially declared that they will enter the race, with others still considering their options. All of them have been wary of aligning themselves too closely with Platner, who had already been plagued by scandal before being accused of rape by an ex-girlfriend. But they run the risk of alienating Platner’s energized base if they distance themselves too much from his policy commitments such as fighting military spending, ending the genocide in Gaza, advocating for Medicare for All, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and strengthening protections for unions. In the running are at least six candidates , three of whom who lost in Maine’s Democratic g
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