One lesson the Democratic Party must take from this election is that the Washington establishment/Wall Street honchos must cease dictating who should and should not be national and state candidates – ordained, funded and directed in primaries, with others obstructed.
Donald Trump and Susan Collins should have been steamrolled. Instead, Hillary Clinton lost in 2016, Joe Biden will probably prevail by a hair, and Sara Gideon was equally vulnerable to negative advertising.
The Republicans might have drowned Bernie Sanders by hanging the democratic socialist label on him, though all he should have needed to do was provide surveys of democratic socialism in European countries to demonstrate that, without compromising civil liberties, it serves the common good far better than government of, by and for corporate greed, which is failing by the numbers.
Biden’s campaign was short on plans, long on personality; Gideon was “from away” and compromised by her husband’s law firm profiting from legislation that she criticized for helping special interests. Also, even voters like me who were super-hostile to Collins had to tire of the ceaseless attacks on her, whoever paid for them.
William H. Slavick
Portland
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