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Ron Hart: Maine, a political Rorschach Test

AP Photo by Robert F. Bukaty, File / Graham Platner, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., left, join hands at an event in Orono, Maine, May 24, 2026.
AP Photo by Robert F. Bukaty, File / Graham Platner, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., left, join hands at an event in Orono, Maine, May 24, 2026. AP Photo by Robert F. Bukaty, File / Graham Platner, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., left, join hands at an event in Orono, Maine, May 24, 2026.

By Ron Hart 4 min read

BRYANT POND, Maine — Spending time in Maine this month, it occurs to me it is just like other states. It has a flag, people and divided politics.

I have absorbed the state’s entire political philosophy: form a committee to investigate having a committee, postpone the decision until mud season is over and do it again.

(READ MORE: Ron Hart: Is Nepo Nutjob Platner the best Dems have to offer?)

It is a place where kids whose parents sent them to Skidmore, Oberlin or Vassar College can be unemployed with little judgment from the locals. It is a state with liberal colleges that invent majors to prove that everything bad is the fault of Republicans. Its leading exports are champagne socialists.

In a state that is 99% white, you can be a white person if you feel bad about it. They believe in BLM and stand behind the state’s African Americans, Thomas and Angela.