Maine voters are still grappling with the dramatic exit from the race of Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner.
Transcription
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It’s been a week since Politico published a story alleging that Maine Democrat Graham Platner raped an ex-girlfriend. He denies the allegation, but it forced him to end his campaign for the United States Senate. Now, the state Democratic Party is fighting to replace Platner on the ballot. But, as NPR political correspondent Tamara Keith reports, voters in Maine are still reeling.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Joseph Berube quit politics in 1972 after Democrat George McGovern lost the presidential race in a landslide.
JOSEPH BERUBE: And that moment, literally, was when I literally retired from politics, because I was so devastated that he single-handedly won Massachusetts.
KEITH: Berube is an independent voter who lives in Northport, Maine. And to his surprise, Graham Platner awakened something in him that he could barely believe.
BERUBE: Because I am so apolitical, so…
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: It really is.
BERUBE: I am. I don’t want anything to do with that. In fact, I was considering donating money to his campaign.
KEITH: Charlotte Agell is on the opposite end of the spectrum. A registered Democrat and illustrated book author in Brunswick, she has been very politically engaged for decades. He met Platner early in his campaign.
CHARLOTTE AGELL: One of our neighbors said, hey, would you like to come over to my backyard and meet Graham Platner? In a way I had heard from him. When I went to that backyard event, I happened to walk in with him.
KEITH: By the time it was over, she had signed up to volunteer for his campaign.
CHARLOTTE AGELL: I felt a kinship with everything that came out of his mouth, basically: very smart, good at identifying the problem.
KEITH: The core of Platner’s populist economic message was that this system has been failing ordinary people, while the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful. She had faced controversies throughout her campaign: the sexist posts on Reddit, the tattoo that looked like a Nazi symbol, the sexting outside of her marriage. Regardless, he easily won the nomination. But then came the rape accusation. Berube says he was devastated by what came next.
BERUBE: I agree with women’s rights, and women should not be abused, but for one person to come up and stand up and say they abused me, and that’s it. First of all, I think it’s not fair to him. So (ph) maybe look into that. And I just thought they didn’t want it.
KEITH: Berube says the Democrats cut off the legs of someone who had brought people back into politics.
BERUBE: It was bringing people like me, and that’s what this is going to do. And you know what? We are in the middle of a war to save this country. And we have the other side who is fighting without gloves, and we are putting on the gloves. We are in trouble.
KEITH: Charlotte Agell has been processing everything a little differently.
CHARLOTTE AGELL: A human instinct would be, okay, now I’m so down that I’m going to stay down, but there’s no time to stay down.
KEITH: The Maine Democratic Party has just two weeks to select a replacement candidate to take on veteran Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who has repeatedly proven herself to be an electoral giant. Agell admits to being a chronic optimist, but says it was never about one man.
CHARLOTTE AGELL: You know, we’re not a cult. We are simply a movement that wants to recover this country for the middle and working class.
KEITH: Agell wants to believe that this massive disruption won’t weaken the drive she felt for change.
CHARLOTTE AGELL: Because it really has been like a rocket. We’ve all been there. And that’s why, you know, when these very serious things have been alleged and, you know, rightly so, he’s pulled out of the race, we’re still flying at 90 million miles an hour, wondering who can take the controls. And let’s figure it out.
KEITH: That’s a great question. And although the Democratic primary had record turnout, including many independent voters, Platner’s replacement will be chosen by a convention of 601 Democratic delegates chosen by county parties. State Sen. Chip Curry says the state party is doing the best it can with a tight schedule.
CHIP CURRY: It’s a winnable race and we have great people. They just… we have to get there.
KEITH: There are more than half a dozen announced candidates, and for Democrats, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Before the recent crisis, Maine was seen as an excellent opportunity to regain control of the US Senate. Tamara Keith, NPR News, Brunswick, Maine.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALEX VAUGHN SONG, “SO BE IT”)
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