(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . A Vote For Platner Will Flatner !!! [1] ['Falcon Hawke', 'Greg Dworkin', 'Matt Z', 'Bill In Portland Maine'] Date: 2026-07-06 Susan Collins in November, that is. LOL … At least, I hope so, and saying it might make it more likely in a consciousness-involves-quantum-entangled-thoughts, sort of way. So, I have now written this hopeful diary in an effort to help get the result that Mainers deserve. I love that state!!! I raised five kids in Maine for a long time, and all four of their Grandfolks are buried there close to each other in south coastal Maine soil, and one of those kids and her kids still live there, and two other of the kids live in neighboring states. Perhaps when the well-meaning folks here (benefit of the doubt liberty taking moment, indulge me), decide to give a rest to the cussin’ and hollerin’ that would make two lobstermen arguing over a coveted pot drop spot look like BFFs, we can get on to the bidnetz of sending Collins to the Magazi Purgatory that she has avoided so slimily like a translucent ghost eel pretending to have a shade of purple for way too many years now. Happily for my conscience, I never voted for Collins back in mah lobstah daze, even tho’ I went to the huge LL Bean Mothership pretty often. No, I wasn’t that dum (did you know there’s s’posed to be a ‘b’ there somewhere?). But I do regretfully confess that in Maine, one year, I did vote for a stinkin ‘Republican’, remembuh dem? -They were that now-surprisingly lamented species now uniformly dead and fossilized – many years ago, and her name was … Olympia Snowe! Not the worst pickle in that old sour barrel. I might have been blinded by the beautiful name! Yah, I know, still shoulda’ known better, and I regret that moment of ‘toopid’ like Graham regrets his drunk buddies Croatian night out I bet. I think my problem was really maybe two things actually. First, she spoke at one of my kids high school graduations, good enuf apolitical speech I remembuh. And, second – we had lobstah at our place the night before the election, and, foolish me … I MELTED AND USED BUTTAH THAT MISBEGOTTEN SUBSTANCE BEFOULING LOBSTAHS … ever since they morphed from the very very old days when people picked up the weird plentiful creatures from the rocky shorelines just hanging around there at low tide, and their cooked pink shells seen tossed about outside weathered grey coastal shacks and fences meant you was a damn poor lobstah eatah’ family … to currently being the pinnacle of cream-sauced-up 5-Star eateries in the most priciest joints on the planet. Using melted buttah with lobstahs is just not a ‘Downeast’ true Mainer thaing, and it can alter your good sense enough to possibly eat the tomalley even maybe, while swearing it is a delicacy. So, in a way, that vote for Olympia Snowe was cast under the influence of clarified warm yellow dairy, and I plead bovine intoxication and promise it was only that one time. So, back to my point … my own thinkin on ‘A Vote For Platner Will Flatner’ is, that Mainers with sense enuf to know “ya’ cain’t git dearh from hearh’ “, which has always been a lot of dem and more than evah of dem deze days after being “concerned” hypnotized after so many years of ‘Svengali Suze’, will make that prediction rise like an Eastern Morning’s First Sunlight at Acadia’s Cadillac Mountain come this November. Yeah, we all know Platner’s got some mussels and some periwinkles and even barnacles hangin’ on his hull, true enuf, but like some big old good dogs of mine did have, there’s a gleam of ‘charisma’ deep down in there, that makes ya’ not mind so much when it’s time to scoop the yard, even if ya’ gotta’ do it thrice a week cuz’ they be bigunz. He’s a very very good speaker in front of a crowd. He is coming to know that, and he has now got “the bit between his teeth” like the screenplay said of driven T.E. Lawrence in the movie “Lawrence of Arabia”. But Graham Platner has to win an expensive election against Magazi Trump-cult remorseless liars, not beat the British Army to Damascus, so he has that going for him – but it still won’t be easy. Also … and this is what matters most I think knowing Mainers … he talks like Mainers talk. And that is different than the other 49. And they hear that, and see him, and they like that … and they ‘get’ the message he’s sending – like Bruce Springsteen sang about on the saddest song on his saddest ever album ‘Tunnel Of Love’ after his first marriage (that happened when I was West still in Portland) to the Lake Oswego model, was ending. So, I hope that this flawed and complicated candidate, a damaged Marine veteran of a tragic war and from a unique beautiful state, gets some support here, and that he will turn out to maybe be that very rare ‘electric blue’ lobstah hauled up in a lucky pot with only greenish-brown ones in there for too damn long. Maine deserves two steps up and just one step back this time, and not the other way around like in that sad bar Bruce was drinkin’ and thinkin’ in when his furnace wasn’t burnin’ and his old Ford engine wasn’t turnin’, and he wrote the saddest song on that vinyl sad masterpiece. I digress … but thanks Bruce, for everything, way back then and now … Maybe more prolific than I political writers and organizers here on this site, you know who you are even if I don’t, can give him some good gas? Maybe at least a can with only a small leak? Reality bites, and I get that, but I for one hope so … since we all need to get ‘dearh from hearh’ , don’t we? We do, because our democratic republic is in a Portland alley fight with Magazi fascists down behind Three Dollar Deweys these days. And right now, we all could use a cold Dewey’s beer while we plan together to fix our only car with wheels that ain’t up `on blocks out in the front yard next to the old fridge out dearh, to get to that alley where we really all need to be. E Pluribus Unum. Thanks Pierre! Good motto mojo back in 1776! A Vote For Platner Will Flatner!!! Kinda catchy, methinks? New Maine motto mojo now I hope, two and a half centuries later. Share it with your favorite lobstah, and hold the buttah … [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/7/6/800053089/community/platner-will-flatner/ Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/