I'm not a professional political analyst by any means, though I do consider myself well informed and perhaps with a little bit of an edge after having spent so much time as a social studies teacher specific to American History and Civics. I do a lot of reading, from a variety of sources outside the scope of the mainstream media, which is really where the American free press exists these days.

I watched the Democratic Senate primary in Maine pretty closely, mainly because I find Graham Platner to be the kind of candidate exactly suited to help Democrats win what I see as an overwhelming victory in the coming Mid-term elections. He's not a party-liner, nor is he a traditional or typical candidate by any stretch of the imagination. He's going to win. His opponent, Senator Susan Collins, is going to lose because she typifies the kind of Republican that most voters will be voting against in November, lacking anything of substance to offer and lacking any real commitment to convictions. But he is going to win because he does have something to offer that is attracting a lot of voters who might not participate in a moribund election otherwise.

The Republicans, and most notably Trump himself, have made the kind of slurs and attacks on Platner's character meaningless. I mean seriously, why should Democrats bother with a few verbal comments, emails and a tatoo when Republicans have ignored far worse than that in almost all of their major candidates and cabinet posts? They're the ones who have made these kinds of choices, which clearly are not representative of the candidate's character by the way, irrelevant and meaningless. This is the politics of the current hour, people, and it is stupid, and yes I will use that word in the full context of its meaning, to try and bring down the strongest Democratic candidate running for the Senate in Maine over a few long since past mistakes that are not only meaningless, but about which the other side has clearly demonstrated they don't give a damn.

I'm pleased to take note of the fact that whoever thought this might amount to something got kicked in the teeth by the primary vote supporting Platner. Honestly, whoever was responsible for that made him an even more viable candidate. He's a man of the people, and the way he is approaching this campaign is a gigantic threat to the billionaire establishment that runs the country now. People who are opposed to that saw this for what it was, and they turned out and gave him a win that went way beyond what pollsters were predicting.