I am not a voter in Maine. Which is fortunate, because if I were, I don’t know what I would do.
Last week, Planned Parenthood, an organization whose entire mission is protecting women, endorsed Graham Platner for the U.S. Senate. He had just won the Maine Democratic primary with 72 percent of the vote, and the party moved quickly to consolidate behind him. What no one seemed willing to pause for were the women who had stepped forward — without consultants, without a campaign apparatus, without anyone standing behind them — to say, simply, “This is what happened to me.”
I have spent weeks following this story. I have watched allegations, denials, explanations, interviews, and competing narratives unfold in real time. What has stayed with me is not the politics. It’s the women.