Coffee & Politics

Greg Lagerquist with us. Let's talk about 1988, the year 1988. We should have done 1988, I would say today. Bangor Daily News has this expose or investigation into Troy Jackson's 1988 fight with a guy. And, you know, it's actually sort of dramatic when you read through the details of it. It sounds to me an awful lot like his now 40-year partner, Lena Pellateer. Maybe they broke up or something at that, you know, he was 19 at the time. They had been together. They, I think, weren't. Some other guy might have been kind of hovering around his ex-girlfriend or whatever at the time, and he was not too pleased about it. So he goes over to this guy's house, bangs on the door. No answer, won't let him in. He kicks down the door and then they get into a fight. A guy gets punched. He says, you stay away from later, Pellateer, man. And then there's this dramatic element of it too where she apparently had told police at the time that he had pushed her around or something to that effect. She now denies that, says I never said that to police. Right. Yep. Anyway, I'm just setting up the whole question here of, does this matter? It's 1988, so it's a really, really long time ago. And it certainly isn't sexual assault or anything like that with Graham Platner. But, you know, there's, it fights and breaking into a guy's house and did he shove his girlfriend and all that other stuff that's, I suppose, part of this. Does anyone care? Multiple answers to this. First of all, I mean. Love Triangle and the ladies, where they're all probably late teenagers, doesn't stick a lot. I mean, I think, honestly, at a certain level... Are you saying it's adding credibility? I'm saying if there are people out there, it's like, oh, good. He wanted to stand up for his girlfriend at the time, and he punched something in the face. Good for him. The details don't sound like that's exactly, though, what happened. Look, the bigger, the 10,000 foot answer is, It matters to the extent that people, look, most people in Maine really don't know who Troy Jackson is. Right. So. Troy Jackson's team literally just got together this week with their new team of a mixture of Maine and national advisors and communications people and strategists. And they are trying to paint a picture of who Troy Jackson is for the larger audience who don't know who Troy Jackson is. So these kinds of early things coming out. Do they get combined with the water bottle throwing incident and other things to paint a picture of a guy who's like an angry dude who does things impulsively or something? Look, the narrative that the Jackson campaign is trying to push back on. And I do want to emphasize, Lana Palatier has come out with statements very clearly saying, I don't remember saying that. And I absolutely don't think I did say that. And I absolutely don't think that's what happened now. So.

To be clear, so we'll put that, we'll put that out there. But it does, the narrative that Troy Jackson's campaign is already trying to push back on is that he's a hothead. And to be honest with you, and again, I almost hesitate to go to wade into this, but anyone who reads the story or is aware of the early attempts to sort of paint a picture of who Troy Jackson is, you know, it comes out about, again, Palatier and Jackson are second cousins. And so. You know, that's in a very tangential way, that gets reintroduced into the sort of thinking around the story and about who Troy Jackson is. And clearly, Matt, as you hit on it, if there's any whiff of... Look, punching a dude in the face to stand up for your girl, you know, yeah, you make it some street credit for that. If there's also some, you know, manhandling of the person that you are in a relationship with, you know, that's where... Well, in the wake of Plattenor. Yeah, in the wake of Plattenor. I mean, it does get exaggerated attention. I do think in the grand scheme of things, this is not going to be the story that decides. Oh, no, no. what's going on. I actually give the BDN some credit. You know, I think that looking deeply into backgrounds is part of what we're supposed to be doing. You know, I remember there was a candidate, a major candidate for statewide office a number of years ago that I found it had a tax lien on a property. And we did a story on it because it speaks to, okay, how do they manage money? If they want to manage our money at a state level, how do they manage their own money? You know, was it a big story? Probably not. But is it worth bringing up and talking about? I think it was. And then let the voters decide if they care or not. I sort of feel the same way about this story. But in the long run, back to the basic fundamental first question asked, I don't think it has a lot of traction, but it comes at an awkward time for the Jackson campaign. And the edges of the story seem to matter more than. You know, the headline of that he got in 1988, a sold arrest for which he paid 50 bucks in a fine, and it went away. But 50 bucks in 1988. Yeah, and in 1988. That's worth $80,000 today, isn't it? It feels like it. Okay, so I brought him his name a couple times, but guess who's back in the news today is Graham Platner? Yes, indeed. And what an interesting little story that is. So he's invited to speak at this Hancock County event. Progressives event. And that's an important element of the story is that it's not like an official Democratic Party thing. No. It's basically the progressive wing of the party inviting him to speak in an event. of theirs. You know, since it was revealed that he was going to be speaking at this event, you know, they've been like pulling down websites that have information on it. And there's been backlash from even the Democratic Party about it. Oh, yeah. Like, what are you guys doing? And I was saying earlier in the show in the 6 o'clock hour, I kind of get that. It's like,

Whether you think he got railroaded or not, whether you think it was fair or not, like, he's old news at this point. Like, he's not the candidate. He's out. He's gone. And so if he reemerges and he's like out there attracting attention, giving speeches, all this other stuff, like, what does that mean for Troy Jackson? Like, is this, does this guy feel like, you know, the... You know, the second choice, the second fiddle, the not quite grand platinum, grand platinum, or whatever, if this other guy just reemerges like this. They want everybody's attention and focus on Troy Jackson right now, not anybody else, right? Yeah, I mean, it's annoying to Troy Jackson on two levels. And you mentioned them both. One is, you know, I would amend the sentence like, what are you guys doing to the sentence was probably closer to? What are you guys? bleeping doing it was a little stronger than what are you guys thinking it was kind of and that's probably why the reaction of like pulling things down so yeah absolutely they're like They're not happy. But two, it does once again saying, well, wait a minute. This is, to be clear, I mean, again, this is a very specific group in Hancock County of progressives that is having an event at Ells, apparently Ellsworth City Hall on Labor Day and they invited Troy Jackson to speak and then advertised it. But it speaks to like you said, well, wait a minute, if there's any group of liberals out there in the state of Maine having an event around Labor Day, now granted. Graham Platner is probably going to be a very busy guy as any candidate is on Labor Day weekend and on Labor Day itself. So he's probably already committed to something bigger than, you know, speaking on the steps of Ellsworth City Hall. But I don't know. I don't know his schedule yet. So, I mean, you got to think, wait, why didn't you invite me? I'm a candidate. So, yeah, I mean, again, it's, but the fact that Graham Platner's name is in the news cycle, and let's be clear, it didn't just, this didn't just pop up on here and there. It went national. You know, people were talking about it like, oh, Graham Platner reemerging. So if I'm Graham Platner, which thank goodness I am not, I'm thinking, you know, I'm feeling like I still matter and I have something to say. And I got pushed out as we saw in his 11-minute exit thing on social media. He clearly didn't go quietly. Well, yeah, he was clearly not happy about it. Not happy about it. So if you're him, and I do actually sort of understand this. You would probably want some ability to try to vindicate or otherwise, you know, like reemerge and kind of clean out your exit. You're looking for an opportunity. And honestly, speaking at a small event in Hancock County on Labor Day is a great one for him. You know, that's almost essentially in his backyard. You know, it's a venue where he's speaking about labor issues that was obviously in his wheelhouse when he was the candidate. So. But again, Troy Jackson is like, wait a minute. That's supposed to be my wheelhouse talking about the plight of the working people of Maine and the nation and how I'm a champion for that. That's supposed to be his message now. And anything that muddles it with, what, 80 or so days before the election is not good. Because again, I go back to the original point I was making about all of this, which is that Troy Jackson has a short period of time to paint a picture on a canvas here for a larger audience of who he is and what he stands for.

worthy of replacing a longtime U.S. senator to represent the state of Maine. So anything that distracts from that is not something he needs. It's interesting, too, because I just talked about how Troy Jackson's trying to define himself. I do know there are people on the other side. They're struggling to figure out how, hey, we've got a short window to try to define him too. We want to be defining him. It does go two ways. But I would, you know, I would say that that's a bigger issue for Troy Jackson's campaign than Susan Collins' campaign. Indeed. I would say so. And, you know, to maybe wrap a bow on both of these topics, there is a polling that has recently come out. And there's been a couple, actually, that have shown, you know, Troy Jackson has a nominal lead or is, you know, just got a little bit of a bump there. So he's, you know, he's in a position that looks reasonably strong. You know, whatever you think about what will happen in November right now, he's... Doing okay. Yeah. So they want to clearly build on that and try to gain some kind of a real foothold. And it's hard to do that if I think your own people. See, the thing that I think is the biggest danger with the Graham Platner thing is that the people who need to be really enthusiastic and energetic about Troy Jackson are maybe a little distracted and maybe they don't. they still have a little bit of that love in their heart for that guy who they didn't get. You know, it's like your girlfriend dumps you and now you're dating someone else and she's pretty cool, but like, she dumped me. Yeah. You know, like, there's still part of your heart that's, you're not over it. No. Yeah, you're in the bounce back now relationship. Correct. It's still not quite pure. Like, are you in, are you in love with Troy Jackson? Yeah. I don't know. Well, yeah. I mean, again, it's, it's, um, You know, Troy Jackson has a needle of thread here. You know, again, the polls are clearly showing that both candidates have their negatives that they're trying to overcome. Troy Jackson, though, has got to pull off a bit of a magic trick, which is keep the base, the progressive base that's really angry right now and wants a fighter to go to Washington and fight against what's the powers that be in Washington right now, which right now is Donald Trump. They want that. And you need to keep that energy. locked in or you or you lose you if the base doesn't show up for you you lose especially in a tight race but i would say in general the base doesn't show up you lose no matter who you are two he's got to sort of expand his brand he's got to get into the middle there who are maybe have voted for Susan Collins in the past but they're not sure they will this time or whoever that you know whoever that is in the middle or even just like you know a left leaning person who's going well again i'm i'm i who may not be enthused either. So he's got to pull off that magic trick and both keeping the base absolutely engaged and showing up and not just on election day. But in the lead up to Election Day where they're getting out the vote, they're knocking on doors, they're making phone calls, all that Go TV, get out the vote efforts that is essential to any campaign, that's got to happen. And he's got to expand his brand. So again, I think it's, that's the trick he's got to pull off, and it's going to be a challenge. Susan Collins obviously has to, you know, she has some extreme headwinds right now with, you know, I think that my take Matt on the polling at the moment.

where Troy Jackson is slightly ahead, is less about Troy Jackson and the overall sentiment of like, you know, where do you feel about the direction of the country right now and do you want somebody else and that kind of thing? I think that that's the headwin for Susan Collins. It's not Troy Jackson specifically, but as we get closer to the actual election, when people go into the voting booth or they, you know, send in their absentee ballot, they've got to feel at that exact moment of actually checking the box for one or the other. that's the moment of truth where they have to feel it, not just sort of have this, you know, generalized sense of what they want. They have to look at these two names and decide. And we saw it six years ago where there was a tight battle in theory in the polls. And in actually in reality, in reality, you know, it may not have been as tight. I think it was tight. But I think at the end, at that moment of truth, people were thinking about, do I really understand at the time of Sarah Gideon? Do I know who this is? Do I understand this person is versus. Do I understand and know who Susan Collins is? And a lot of late breakers went to Susan Collins. And I think that that's something absolutely Troy Jackson's people are going, we can't let that happen again. And Susan Collins, people are going, yeah, that's what we're going to make happen. So that's kind of the thrust of where we're at right now. Well, you know, speaking of Susan Collins. You know, she was in the news here today on my list because of the body camera issue. She announced yesterday that they all have them now. And, of course, prior to that, there was the whole, you know, stopping the stops issue and, you know, responses to what happened a bit of her, obviously, in the situation here. And, you know, has that really sunk in for anybody? Does that matter to anybody? Does that change public opinion or whatever in by itself? I'm not sure it does, but it is kind of a powerful reminder that. She picked up the phone and she called the Department of Homeland Security and said, make this happen. And they delivered it two weeks early. And they did it. If Troy Jackson is elected. And he picks up the phone, does that same thing happen? And I think a lot of voters who are maybe not just really irate at Trump and whatever else, but are considering both candidates or whatever, things like that as they pile up and as you are reminded of them and whatnot may matter quite a bit in the aggregate together. I would agree. It's obviously effective. when she tries to be about things that they care about. Agreed. I think that any time you can sort of say, look, I'm getting results here. This is what you talked about. This is what you've been caring about. And here I am. And let's be clear. If you're the senator of the party of the president, you're probably going to have a better chance in getting your phone call answered at the White House. So that's obviously Susan Collins has that advantage. But to that point, though, she's the one who. you know, months ago, fought in the compromise that sort of came out in the reconciliation bill and to get things over, you know, to stop the closure of government. They basically said, look, let's get this over the finish line. She had pushed for making sure that there was a, hey, let's acknowledge there things aren't going great with ice. There's a transparency problem here, which is leading to a perception problem, which is leading to a lack of trust in this process problem. And one way to address it is,

Body cameras. So the money's been out there. Why aren't you? And then suddenly we relearned that, wait a minute, this was months ago and they haven't actually bought the cameras. What's going on? And Susan Collins had the same reaction. Picked up the phone and said, guys, I gave you the money. What's going on? Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Right on. Absolutely. So yes. Do I think that one incident is going to matter? Probably not. Is it a needle mover? Probably not. But I think you made it the exact right point. Whereas if she can sort of build up these. You know, sort of small reminders of, hey, a sitting United States senator who's the head of the Appropriations Committee can get stuff done. So, but, you know, again, it's a double-A. I feel like this particular issue is a double-edged sword because I think you might find the other side saying, oh, that $20 million they're about to spend on shock gloves. That probably came from Susan Collins, too. You know, so the narrative can, you know, sort of cut both ways. I want a shock glove. If anybody can get me one. I want that. I'm going to use it on Greg Lagerquist next week. I love your 1988 bad action movie reference. Doesn't it? Because I'm like, there was something a villain would come up with. There are some great bad action movies in the late 80s. As a child in the late 80s, absolutely. So anyway, look, I do think that this is some of all the, each one of these stories in isolation, not a needle mover. It does build, though, towards the overall weight of what's going to happen in November. Good point. Two minutes left. We had it on Tuesday, going back in time here a little bit, more primary elections, a little bit of a surprise in Wisconsin, according to the polls, speaking of those, didn't really end up being very accurate in the end, once again in Wisconsin. You know, it is part of the larger tapestry of stories, though, of this, especially on the Democratic side of the aisle, this tension, this back and forth between the progressive element and the party's establishment. For once, the party establishment won in that particular. Very narrowly, but yes. And interestingly, on my list of stories today, Mike Rogers in Michigan is leading Mr. Abdul El-Sayed. Right. that's got to be part of this little story. Yeah, we've talked about this. I do think that there's... Like electability. Look, the Democratic parties have the same, you know, thing that we've seen multiple times in both parties, which is they're at a crisis moment. They're like, look, we got our... We did not expect to lose to Donald Trump in 2024, and we did. What do we, you know, so there's an anger element, and we, you know, going back to what I said a little while ago. So, but then you have this, I think what the, what the... What the Democrats are trying to figure out is who are we? What's our message? Because look, Republicans have a very clear message, and there are those who hate that message, but it's like that Donald Trump has got... But you know what it is. We know what it is. He's the guy in charge, and we're going to follow him. And Democrats are still searching for that message. And I do think that what we saw there in Wisconsin was... I think there was an electability debate within the party at that moment of truth, as I recalled it earlier. And they went with the person they thought was probably going to be more electable. We'll see. I mean, I think, again, it's that. Electability is the key to all of this. But energy, the base is key as well. I think the Democrats have trying to figure it out. They haven't yet. Well, we'll save more analysis for next time. Greg Lagerquist, coffee, politics. Always a pleasure.