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As I contemplate next year’s Maine Democratic Party primary for U.S. Senate involving the two leading candidates, Gov. Janet Mills and Graham Platner, the highly quotable phrase attributed to legendary baseball player Yogi Berra comes to mind: “It’s deja vu all over again.”
In 1968, I was a graduate student at Columbia University and a Vietnam War protester at the time that Sen. Eugene McCarthy was challenging Vice President Hubert Humphrey for the Democratic Party nomination for president in Chicago. McCarthy, an anti-war activist whose politics were to the left of Humphrey, was the favorite of college students and many liberal Democrats. After a bruising convention marred by riots and police violence, Humphrey secured the nomination.
Unfortunately, when given the chance to vote either for Humphrey or Richard Nixon, many McCarthy supporters sat out the election. The argument that his committed and vocal supporters should “hold their noses” and vote for Humphrey, by far the lesser of two evils, held no sway with these voters. Nixon won, appointed four Supreme Court Justices, and the rest is history.
I fear the same scenario will repeat itself in the 2026 Senate election. I am not enthusiastic about either of the leading Senate candidates and challenge the Maine Democratic Party to encourage a responsible, experienced, younger individual to face Sen. Susan Collins in November 2026. Let’s avoid “deja vu all over again.”
Larry Kaplan
Cape Elizabeth
