Humility in politics
Letter from Away — July 16, 2026
I gave up any allegiance I might have had to the Democrats back in the 1990s. I think it might have had something to do with the Party’s ill treatment of Jerry Brown, or maybe the brief hope offered by the Green Party. I knew manipulation when I saw it. Conventions where cheerleaders always precede platform debates that get pushed down the schedule to be shut down by a quorum call. I watched party loyalists support Bill Clinton as he stalled the wheels of government for more than a year while pundits and politicians licked their chops over the fresh meat of sexual scandal. Imagine what might have happened if, instead of asking “what the meaning of the word is is,” he had resigned in early ’98 and let us get on with the work of the people. Al Gore would have become president. Imagine that.
At that level of public service no personal stake should ever outrank the job itself.
Life for humans on earth has changed dramatically since the 1990s, even more in this not-so-new century. But the list of priorities presented at those doomed platform debates has not changed. Long before June 9, when participants in Maine’s Democratic primary voted overwhelmingly for the Social Democrats’ laundry list, similar proposals were offered to the Party at convention after convention:
Corporate responsibility; progressive taxation; single-payer national health care; environmental protection; federal support for quality housing and education; reproductive rights; full civil rights regardless of race, religion, economic circumstances, sex, gender, health or disability; legalization of cannabis; an end to federal support for private school vouchers; ending the sale of arms as a tool of diplomacy; an end to citizens’ rights for corporations; full funding to Medicare and Medicaid; a path to citizenship for all who qualify; the right for workers to organize; a living federal minimum wage indexed to inflation; Social Security solvency ensured by an end to the payroll tax cap; peace as a priority.
Over and over, party leaders in Maine and across the country, have found ways to stifle voices they think too controversial, ideas that might muddle the heads of the electorate. Always manipulating us for our own good. Maybe it is time for the people to take the reins.
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Maine Speaker of the House Ryan Fecteau (D-Biddeford) was invited by Meet the Press host Kristen Welker, June 9, to discuss the Party’s options after Graham Platner suspended his Senate bid. With obvious and ravenous glee, she pressed him to announce his own candidacy or endorse someone else. “This is the exact problem,” Fecteau said. “What voters do not want is party leaders like me trying to put my thumb on the scale in determining who the winner’s going to be.” As Welker nodded smugly, a living push poll, Fecteau reminded her, “Graham Platner is not the only person that believes what Graham Platner believes.”
Like 72% of Democratic Primary voters, I am sad, frustrated, confused, and fearful. Perhaps, in days or years to come, we will have time for analysis, but right now we need to ask the Maine Democratic Party to unplug from the DNC and listen to Mainers. We voted for a platform in June, more than for a single person. While the person is compromised, that platform must go forward. In this unprecedented moment, the job of party leaders is to find the best way to understand the will of voters in choosing a new candidate for this important seat.
Read the room, Democrats. Fear of Susan Collins should not allow a poor replacement. Whether you believe him or his accusers, Platner’s redemption is now in his own hands, and you who call yourselves leaders hold the keys to a peaceful cultural transition of great importance. To navigate this moment, you must believe your own propaganda.
I am not a statistician, but data available from the Secretary of State’s office indicates that almost 20-percent of absentee ballots received in the June 9 Democratic Primary were cast by unenrolled voters, so-called independents. Republican Party absentee ballots totaled less than half the number cast for Democrats, with about 18-percent of those submitted by unenrolled voters. More than twice as many absentee ballots were received for the Democrats primary than the Republicans. Similar data on in-person voting is still being received from municipalities, which have until Aug. 11 to send their breakdowns to the Secretary of State.
It is time to engage the grassroots, the phone bankers, door knockers, and canvassers, and invite into the process the unenrolled voters who helped make Maine’s senate race a topic of global conversation. Find a way to let the unaffiliated speak.
I went to the demonstration Saturday thinking I would best serve this juncture by being a witness to all the emotion I knew would be present, but driving over to Rockland, I heard Maine Democratic Party Chair Charles Dingman say our ultimate goal is to remove Susan Collins from office and help form a Democratic majority in Congress, and I’m sorry, but my ultimate political goal is full representation of all the people, in alignment with the values of the electorate; congressional turnover is a short term goal I support, in order to bring that enfranchisement about.
By the time I got to Chapman Park, I was pretty irate about the dismissal of these citizens. I was not a quiet witness. I was a pedantic, hectoring, annoyance — frustrated by party officials who, while acknowledging a flawed process, offered time pressure and the wisdom of “leadership” as rationale, failing to see that it is simply wrong to create a process that doesn’t include folks like me who offer our allegiance and effort to democracy, and not to those party leaders and elected officials who automatically have a seat at the table where processes are hammered out and delegates assigned.
I’m not saying I won’t vote for whoever they nominate; that, as always, is a decision I will make when I stand before my ballot, but the party has benefited by our votes without making room for us to inform their response to the result. And it’s really too bad. You’d have a stronger party if you let us in.
Shlomit Auciello is a writer, photographer, and human ecologist who lives in Midcoast Maine. Letter From Away has appeared online and in print since 1992. Back issues of this column can be found at shlomitauciello.medium.com.
