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Your first paragraph certainly describe how is should pan out, or at least how the Maine Democratic Party should try to play it if they have any semblance of competence, even if the list of potential replacements looks more like the waiver wire than a murderer's row. As for whether the replacement can beat Collins, it's a tall order, but Polymarket certainly regards it as a possibility, as the odds were never in Collins's favor. I tend to reserve judgment on these things though. As to whether the candidate will be forgotten after a loss, I don't know why you think anyone would bring it up again, since most losing candidates are relegated to the toilet of history once the concession speech is over. For the same reason, I don't understand the obsession that erupted over the whole DNC 2024 postmortem. The people criticizing the DNC over this aren't doing because they have a genuine desire to see Democratic candidates perform better in the future, but because they want to see the party officially berate Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. This might have its uses as a piece of political theater, but the idea that any lessons learned would apply to future elections is absurd.
Generally speaking, when it comes to party politics, people seem to have a notion that it's like a hockey team, where the coaches and GM all get together and look at the draft board and the free agent market and pick players to slot in on their team. What's happening in Maine now and what happened nationally in 2024 is similar to that, but it's a rare exception to the normal course of business. Donald Trump does not have the power he currently has because the RNC brain trust was looking to change direction. Joe Crowley didn't get bounced from his House seat because the New York Democratic Committee felt that a young Latina socialist would be a better fit for the Bronx.
I don't know. It's starting to look like a pattern. Do we even know if Maine Democratic primary voters wanted Platner to drop out?
Republicans don't do this. Todd Akin, Roy Moore, and Mark Robinson all stuck it out to the bitter end. Occasionally losing a winnable race is worth it to maintain the democratic legitimacy of the party and to capture the occasional lightning in a bottle (imagine if Trump had been forced out in 2016).
I wouldn't go that far, but it does seem like the Democrats have this procedure where (1) decisions are made by a kind of consensus-building process in chat groups; social media posts; etc.; and (2) those decisions are then enforced.
I honestly do not believe that the decision to replace Joe Biden with Kamala Harris was made by some cabal in a smoke-filled back room. Rather, I think it was an emergent process, kind of like the decision as to what style of clothing will be fashionable next year.
I think that since the Left has a great deal of control over cultural institutions in the United States, especially media companies, the Democrats have great access to the tools necessary for consensus-building. Which can be used to generate quite a lot of support for otherwise unpopular ideas. Which is can be useful for advancing their agenda, but can also be harmful since the US is more or less a democracy. Unpopular ideas can cost you a great deal of votes and it can be difficult to change course since nobody in particular is steering the ship.
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Republicans have absolutely pressure candidates to step aside. They've also pressured sitting office-holders to resign (and in one recent case, expelled a sitting member who refused to resign) over scandals. Akin and Moore weren't majorly pressured to step aside because their core supporters didn't really think they did anything wrong. (AFAIK Robinson was pressured, but simply refused to bow out)
Moore at the very least was strongly pressured, he was just crazy and oblivious.
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That's the point. The Republican Party apparatus does not have the power (either de facto or de jure) to remove candidates from the ballot. The Democratic Party apparatus does. All of Trump's influence over congress is directly mediated by the voters through primary elections. The Republican Party is more democratic than the Democratic Party.
You misunderstand me. The Republican Party has successfully pressured candidates to resign. It has successfully pressured sitting congressmen to resign. I don't feel confident enough to say if Robinson was an outlier or not, but I can observe, on the converse, that there are examples of the same pattern on the Democratic side, e.g. Menendez.
That is... wildly untrue.
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