Dear Editor:

Now that Graham Platner has been thrown under a bus by the pearl-clutching wing of the Democratic party, who are we going to vote for in November? A professional politician seeking her sixth consecutive term in the U.S. Senate? One whose claim to fame is casting 10,000 votes in that august body? Donald Trump’s acolyte, who voted in lockstep with him 96% of the time? Someone we can thank for the right-wing majority in the Supreme Court that took away women’s reproductive rights and gutted the Voting Rights Act? The one who triangulates skilfully to appeal to Independents and Democrats, bucking the president only when she knows her vote won’t jeopardize an unpopular Republican bill?

Let’s not. Let’s vote for a candidate with hard-earned experience outside the polished halls and plush offices of Congress. Let’s elect a young man whose qualifications include three tours of combat duty with the United States Marines, additional overseas service with the Maryland Army National Guard, and the responsibilities of owning a business and doing the hard, manual labor to sustain it.

Among his many military decorations, he earned the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, the Combat Action Ribbon, and the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal. At this fraught moment in our nation’s history, when a pointless war is being waged to inflate the president’s ego and distract us from his many scandals, Graham Platner knows the true costs of war and will bring principled, courageous resistance to the unprecedented corruption and incompetence of the Executive branch.

Let’s throw a retirement party for our venerable Republican senator; after all those votes, she has earned her rest.

Bill Hammond

Boothbay