The Democrats in Maine, anxious to beat US Senator Susan Collins in November, nominated a charismatic outsider and then pressured him to withdraw his nomination as his flawed personal background came to light. The state party then undertook a hasty process of picking a replacement nominee.
A comparable situation has been going on in New Mexico, around the same time frame, as our elected nominee for Lieutenant Governor, Maggie Toulouse Oliver, withdrew her nomination for health reasons. The process to replace her was less inclusive but still representative of Democrats in the state.
There’s a lesson to be learned by comparing the candidates. New Mexico’s situation is nobody’s fault. It occurred because of a personal issue raised by the candidate herself. In Maine, the original candidate was the problem. It leads to what I consider a pretty simple principle. That is, when someone is running for an office of government, prior government experience matters. It’s a bad risk to nominate the apparently brilliant outsider for a top job. It’s safer to let voters get to know him at a lower level.
Graham Platner, the former Maine nominee, was found to have disqualifying behavior in his personal background, including a sexual assault allegation, sexually explicit text messages to women and a Nazi tattoo. The concern about him is not just that he allegedly did those things, but that he did not recognize that they were disqualifying.
That suggests he did not understand an important aspect of the public office he was running for. The voters in Maine would have had a much easier time if he had run for a lower level office such as state legislature and his flaws had been revealed with not so much at stake.
The nominee who replaced Platner, Troy Jackson, is well known to Maine voters. He is a former state senator, senate president and majority leader from 2018 to 2024. In the unusual circumstances of this election, he will have to campaign but will not have to be introduced. His role in the legislative leadership can give voters confidence that he had earned the respect of his legislative colleagues. He has a public record that voters can look at.
New Mexico Democrats have done something similar by choosing Stephanie Garcia Richard to replace Toulouse Oliver. Garcia Richard has served eight years in a highprofile state office as land commissioner. She has done this important job with distinction and without scandal. Before that she was a state legislator for three terms. Her background doesn’t mean all voters will like her, but it does mean she is well prepared and well known.
New Mexico has chosen others who came to their high positions step by step. Ben Ray Lujan, who is now so popular that he has not drawn a serious opponent in his Senate re-election race, served on the Public Regulation Commission and then served terms in Congress. Perhaps even more beneficial, Lujan learned public policy at the family dinner table as the son of the late House Speaker Ben Lujan, who was first elected to the legislature when Ben Ray was three years old.
The other concern about nominating an outsider is that government really is different from the private sector. It has rules and limitations for which a business career is not the right preparation. For the highest level jobs – like the United States Senate -- we citizens are better off if we elect people who are willing to function within those limitations.
The United States of America now has a president who never learned the lessons of cooperation, compromise or valuing the knowledge of others that most office holders learn. The failed Graham Platner experiment is a reminder for the future to avoid using that as a role model.
Merilee Dannemann’s columns are posted at www.triplespacedagain.com Comments are invited through the web site.