Hats off to party chairman Charlie Dingman and the Maine Democrats. As has been recently reported, never in modern American political history has a state party managed a competitive nominating contest on such a short timeline.

Thanks, too, to the leaders of my local town committee, the Democrats of the Kennebunks and Arundel, which, over this past year, scheduled town hall meetings with all the candidates for governor and Senate and a substantive debate with the gubernatorial aspirants.

The opportunity to meet these individuals face to face laid the groundwork for my neighbors and me to choose from a strong slate of candidates, with whom we were quite familiar, to replace Graham Platner on the November ballot.

I’m hopeful that our new nominee, Troy Jackson, will attract many of the same voters that Mr. Platner so effectively energized, while also appealing to Independents and possibly even some Republicans who are disheartened by the current direction in which our nation is headed.

To underscore the significance of this achievement one need only be reminded of Will Rogers’ wry observation: “I’m not a member of any organized political party. I’m a Democrat.”

Tom Putnam
Cape Porpoise