I’m sort of “against polling” too

Plus whether the Baumol effect is a disease, and correct opinions about lobster rolls

Portland Press Herald / Contributor

This will be my final Maine mailbag of the season, just as the Senate race is getting a little bit interesting with the entry of military veteran, oyster farmer, and non-politician Graham Platner into the race. I don’t know that much about him, but I have had his family’s oysters several times this summer and they’re quite good!

I know the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee really wants to recruit Janet Mills into this race, but I think Susan Collins is so hard to beat that you need to make moves that increase variance, like nominating someone unorthodox.

I also want to remind anyone interested in helping improve federal mass transit policy that the deadline for submissions to the Institute for Progress Transit Policy Playbook is this Sunday, August 24. You can learn more here or submit your idea here.

At any rate: Some questions!

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Brendan: Given your advocacy for embracing popular positions, is it time for Mainers to abandon the inferior Maine-style lobster roll (cold, drowned in mayonnaise) and embrace the superior Connecticut-style (hot, buttered) lobster roll?

A good Maine lobster roll is served lightly mayo’d and not at all “drowning.” If you’re on the Blue Hill Peninsula, I recommend the Fish Net in downtown Blue Hill or (for a better view at a higher price) L.D.I. Lobster on Little Deer Isle.

If you want to eat a hot lobster with warm butter, have yourself a proper lobster dinner and crack some shells.

PhillyT: What are your thoughts on this article by Eric Levitz in which he argues against John Ganz’s recent column, “Against Polling?” You are mentioned in it briefly. That is why I asked.

I agree with basically everything that Levitz says.

But I guess if I were writing the piece, I would say that I have more sympathy for the anti-empiricist sentiments in Ganz’s original article. Where I think he and frankly a lot of younger progressives go off-base is in actually misreading the history of polling and empiricism in Democratic Party politics.