After two failed attempts to nominate a Maine candidate friendly to the party establishment, the consultant class is finding better success with its third approach, co-optation.
Page A5From§Eachthe early evening edition — 25 September 2026
Party gatekeepers spend the week purging socialists while a billionaire gives them even odds to win 2028.
As it ran on the front
Peter Thiel, the Palantir cofounder who says he's still a Vance partisan, put a number on it this week: fifty-fifty odds a socialist wins the White House in 2028. That's not a warning from the left. That's the house odds from the guy on the other side, and he's not laying money against it.
You'd think a coin-flip election would send the Democratic Party's own gatekeepers scrambling to build the coalition that could win it. Instead they spent the week doing the opposite.…
…(cont) Start with Rahm Emanuel. On August 30 he told Fox News he doesn't consider socialists part of the Democratic tent at all — "run as a separate party." Same reflex, same network, and now Emanuel is telling the New York Post what separates him from other 2028 hopefuls — which means he's still deciding whether to run against the fifty percent Thiel just handed the field.
James Carville had his own diagnosis three days later: Democrats can't build a consistent negative and positive narrative, and whoever the 2028 nominee is had better master political messaging or lose. He said this three days after telling Laura Ingraham, twice in the same interview, that Piker is "not a Democrat" and the party shouldn't use its name near him. That's the plan so far: purge the streamer, keep the polling memo.
Then there's Maine. Democratic consultants spent two cycles trying to nominate their own establishment-friendly candidate there and failed both times. The third approach: co-opt Troy Jackson, the candidate who won anyway, by surrounding him with pro-Israel donors. This is the same week Susan Collins sits inside what ProPublica called a "sprawling pay-to-play operation" — the story Jackson himself called "corruption of the highest order" on September 22. It's also the same week Current Affairs points out that Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed is up five points on his Republican opponent while Jackson trails Collins by three.
So count it up: two failed picks in Maine, one co-opted third try, three weeks between Rahm's two denunciations, twice in one breath from Carville — and one billionaire willing to bet even money the whole operation still loses. The gatekeepers aren't managing a coin flip. They're trying to land on the side where nothing changes, and calling the landing strategy.
“You want to know why the party can't close a fifty-fifty bet? Because the guy who set the odds is on the other team, and their own leadership spent the week making sure the odds hold — kicking out the people actually organizing to close the gap, then handing Maine's seat to the donors instead. That's not a strategy that loses by accident; that's a business model that needs the base weak enough to keep hiring consultants and rich enough in donors to keep paying them.”
“Look, calling out Piker isn't a purge, it's just — it's message discipline, basically, Carville said "narrative," Rahm said "hateful," same instinct, drawing a line. And surrounding Troy Jackson with pro-Israel donors, that's coalition-building, that's just how a campaign — okay, it's money, but it's our money now, so the coalition's fine. Did I just call it a coalition? That's the word. That's exactly the word.”
The receipts
Will former Vice President Kamala Harris be the 2028 Democratic presidential nominee? It depends on who you believe. If you believe the national polls, the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee is heavily favored to win the nomination again.
Maine Democratic US Senate candidate Troy Jackson pounced on Tuesday after ProPublica published a damning story putting incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins at the center of what the publication described as a "sprawling pay-to-play operation." In a statement released shortly after the ProPublica story dropped, Jackson accused Collins…
Democrats are running an average of 11.5 points ahead of their 2024 baseline across 2026 special elections MultiState Elections, 2026 special-election tracking
Carville says the GOP is better than Democrats at one key skill the 2028 Dem nominee will needJames Carville says Democrats lack a consistent negative and positive narrative, warning the party's 2028 nominee must master political messaging to win.
Emanuel hasn't been shy about his potential prospects for the White House.
Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel predicted there will be a 50-50 chance that a socialist candidate wins the presidency in 2028 against the Republican nominee, whether that is Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Asked which administration official would be a better candidate to increase the Republican Party’s chances…
Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Hasan Piker has a right to his own opinions, but people are also free and obligated to call out speech they consider hateful. Piker, a popular Twitch political streamer who has become a visible figure on the Democratic Party’s left flank, has campaigned and appeared with progressive candidates ahead…
Democratic strategist James Carville again went after left-wing streamer Hasan Piker on Monday, saying he is “not” a member of his party. “So, let me repeat: Hasan Piker is not a Democrat, OK?”
The New York Times has a new article headlined “ Democrats Show Strength in Michigan Senate Race but Trail in Maine, Polls Find. ” It highlights the divergent electoral prospects of two Democratic Senate candidates: Michigan’s Dr.
· Rahm Emanuel shuts socialists out of Democratic tent: ‘Run as a separate party’ from the morgue, 30 Aug 2026
· The socialist takeover: This is not your parents’ Democratic Party from the morgue, 12 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.