Graham Platner

Subject

The Democratic Party's suburban voter growth strategy > compensate for the loss of working-class voters

Quote from Video

For every workingclass person we lose, like out in the countryside, we're going to gain two voters in in the suburbs and it didn't happen. Donald Trump won and then he won again and we lost a lot of seats around the country. Like so clearly that math did not pan out.

Subject

Right-wing populism > improve economic and social outcomes for the public

Quote from Video

And as people begin to realize that this right-wing populism, it's not making things cheaper, right? And it's not reopening hospitals and it's not making your health insurance company any less awful to deal with.

Subject

Graham Platner > money and politics

Quote from Video

I was already pretty cynical about money and politics and that has that that cynicism has just been supercharged. I mean it is like and I like it and the problem is like you clearly need to raise money to compete for this stuff but there is just a whole apparatus that seems to exist just to suck up money.

Subject

The political system > structurally inaccessible to regular people

Quote from Video

the biggest lesson I have learned is structurally it's borderline impossible for regular people to pull this off. Like if you're a regular human being with not a lot of money and having lived a pretty normal life who doesn't want to like just get your entire existence ripped to pieces.

Subject

Negative TV advertising > influence electoral outcomes

Quote from Video

And in my experience like negative TV ads, I don't think they actually moved the needle much in Maine. In 2020, the Sarah Gideon race outspent the Collins race almost 3 to1. An immense amount of money was spent on negative ads about Susan Collins. It didn't do anything.

Subject

Graham Platner's campaign strategy > in-person engagement

Quote from Video

The way Maine tends to work is that people trust their friends and their neighbors more than they trust uh TV ads from political groups. And part of our strategy quite frankly is just to cut through all of it by engaging as many people as possible and and personally interacting with as I do three to six public events a day.

Subject

Maine Governor > tribal sovereignty legislative fixes

Quote from Video

There have been multiple attempts to fix this and the governor is opposed to all of them both as attorney general and as governor. So like to me that is also a pretty fundamental difference around I don't know like a foundation of political philosophy.

Subject

Military-Industrial Complex > Iraq and Afghanistan wars

Quote from Video

I do know that some people made a lot of money off the wars that I fought in. And it wasn't the young men and women who did the fighting. It's defense contractors and it's uh it's folks in political power like it really is.

Subject

Community organizing > negative electoral outcomes in local races

Quote from Video

It was this moment for myself and a few other people where we we watched this happen and we it only happened because it was no organizing versus a little bit of organizing. They had people to knock doors and this guy had himself. It's a small town schoolboard race and there was no apparatus to support him.

Subject

Graham Platner > defeat of Susan Collins

Quote from Video

I'm pretty I'm convinced we're not just going to beat Susan Collins in November. I think we're going to trounce Susan Collins.