Maine Democrats Cannot Find A Normal Guy To Run Against Susan Collins
And it's a more general problem for the party than just one state or race
Journalist Steve Robinson of Maine Wire has reported that Troy Jackson, the Democratic Party’s replacement candidate for Graham Platner, lives in a common law relationship with his second cousin, Lana M. Pelletier. The relationship has been an open secret in the tiny town of Allagash, where they live. The couple has two adult children.
Platner dropped out of the race last month after substantial allegations of criminal trespass and sexual violence against a girlfriend in 2021. Platner later used the same dating app to meet the alleged victim and to reconnect with his current wife. Jackson was chosen to replace Platner in a non-democratic party process.
To be fair, most of the world has practiced some level of consanguinity, or cousin marriage. Social taboos against it are characteristic of the West, especially the United States after the Progressive Era in the 19th century, which produced laws against cousin marriage.
Jackson’s coverage explains this history and sets aside moral disgust. Jackson and Pelletier have not broken any laws. Marriage to a second cousin, once removed, has vanishingly small chances of producing a child with genetic problems. For political purposes, the most interesting thing about their relationship is the potential black hole it leaves in Jackson’s financial self-reporting.
Typically, pols must submit detailed accounts of their income, assets and liabilities, as well as the finances of their spouses. But because Pelletier and Jackson never wed, and because Maine does not recognize any form of common-law marriage, it’s not clear whether Jackson’s financial disclosures will cover the second-cousin couple’s full financial situation.
If Pelletier, as merely the mother of Jackson’s adult children, is exempt from inclusion in the financial disclosures in a way that Collins’ husband is not, then the knitted family tree could engage in all kinds of clever accounting tricks to artificially impoverish Jackson as a way of maintaining his working-class image.
As of this week, Jackson hasn’t filed the disclosures or a request for an extension, and the circumstances of his nomination are so unusual that the secretary of the Senate has yet to say when Jackson will be required to make his finances transparent — or whether those disclosures will include assets placed under the name of his second cousin.
At the most reasonable, generous end of public reactions to this news will be Mainers who raise an eyebrow at the possibility of corruption. This is not so hard for Jackson to overcome through transparency. Avoidance of disclosures could hurt him with negative stories.
At the least-reasoned, most-reactive end of public response is revulsion at a cousin-kissing candidate. By the time he dropped out, Graham Platner had already lost working class Mainers because they knew what he was. Maine Democrats had a chance to wipe the slate clean and start with a new, normal-seeming candidate, and they blew it.
This week, premium subscribers are listening to my podcast conversation about the Democratic Party with Swann Marcus. He is a disappointed Dem, and he takes the party to task for nominating candidates who do not seem normal to real voters. Despite all their pretensions of representation of the working class, the party is bad at seeing its candidates as they are seen by regular people.
Troy Jackson already had an uphill fight. Now, some number of Maine voters that might have been winnable will see him instead as abnormal. The problem we identified in the podcast is real. Dems lose men and noncollege workers when they project weirdness. The party cannot see it when they look in the mirror, though, and this is a serious problem.