Ralph Benko served as a deputy general counsel in the Reagan White House and worked closely with the George W. Bush administration as a contractor in its domestic policy initiative to find and rescue human trafficking victims. He lives in Maryland.

“As Maine goes, so goes the nation” was, for about a century, a political maxim. Recently, the political junkies in the capital were obsessing about the Platner vs. Collins race.

Wrong race!

Understandable, for those card-carrying members of the Columnist Party. The U.S. Senate majority, a very big deal, may hinge on that race. And that race was spiced up by the salacious and unseemly stories about the winner of the Democratic primary.

With that said, hey, junkies? Platner vs. Collins always was the wrong race to put on the marquee of your political theater. The real bellwether race  is the governor’s contest between Bobby Charles and Hannah Pingree.

The political dynamics that have emerged or are emerging is less Republican vs. Democrat and more establishment insiders (Hannah Pingree, former speaker of the Maine House, whose family name has been a prominent fixture in Maine politics for over 30 years) vs. popular insurgents (Bobby Charles, on his first electoral foray).

Charles is fashioning his affordability program via a classic center-right Republican free market platform. Pingree is fashioning her affordability solution via a classic center-left Democratic public works and pro-regulatory platform.

Full disclosure, as chairman of the 190,000-Facebook follower Capitalist League, I lean center-right. My own preferences revealed, there is more to this race than programmatic preferences.

The Charles vs. Pingree race is the perfect microcosm of the national political culture.

I was a lifelong Democrat until the sensible Democratic Party left me for left field. And there they go again. The progressive Mills-Pingree-Platner party ghosts the FDR/JFK/Bill Clinton Democrats. 

Bobby Charles — who worked in the Reagan White House and later directly for Colin Powell —  is a modern Reaganesque figure, aligning himself with the sensible Maine population, including independents and traditional Democrats, offering common-sense policies.

Charles is running on the Republican line. Yet he has the kind of “man of the people” values that FDR embodied and Middle America embodies. 

Yes, there is a lot of crazy going on in the GOP now. Charles, however, embodies classical Republican radical pragmatism. He’s not an ideologue, and is exempt from the fanaticism that so plagues our politics today. Charles is neither a zealot nor a moderate. He’s simply … capable.

Meanwhile the Democrats now, wholesale, are nominating “democratic socialists.” Wait, what? History has repeatedly shown that socialism doesn’t work, locally or nationally. 

The further left you move, the more it never works. Remember Jimmy Carter’s misery index? (That’s what forced me out of my once beloved Democratic Party.) 

Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different outcomes. Let’s do sane for a change.

Hannah Pingree presents as an honorable and capable public servant. That said, she will, if elected, be badly constrained by the romantic-but-dysfunctional emerging narrative of her party, now in thrall to its fanatical base, listing so far to portside that it is about to capsize the ship of state.

Maine is one of the states most guided by common sense. Its voters will embrace the candidate with a proven agenda for affordability and security rather than a member of the party who is admittedly charming but impractically romantic (Bernie, AOC, Zohran, etc).

While the nation scratched its head at Maine’s oddly out of sync “oyster farmer” there was, and is, a more meaningful race afoot. Many who have known Bobby Charles for decades and watched him serve his country unflinchingly think he, considered a dark horse, is the odds-on favorite to pull an upset and bring common sense and real management skills to Maine’s governance.

So, political junkies? Now that Platner vs. Collins has ended, please turn your attention to the true marquee Maine race, Charles vs. Pingree. For as Maine goes, so goes the nation.

Massachusetts’ recent smoky skies and hazy sunsets may look unusual, but experts say what we’re seeing is part of a growing pattern fueled by bigger and longer wildfire seasons.

The strange haze has lingered for two days — so far — thanks to a weather pattern bringing smoke straight from parts of Ontario, Canada, straight to New England.

“A lot of the fires farther up north are burning longer and more intensely than they have previously, so that’s been a big change and may be why we’re seeing more of the smoke,” said James Urban, an associate professor in the Fire Protection Engineering Department at Massachusetts’ Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

It looks like Boston’s getting a break from the wildfire smoke that’s making the sky hazy enough that you can actually look at the sun, if briefly. But that break may not last. Plus, we’re looking at rain moving in this weekend.

He explained the nuances about how climate chance may play a role in what we’re seeing this summer.

“In general, drier conditions make things more flammable, but also, if you have a period before that of wet winter but not a lot of freezing, you may get a lot of plant growth, and then when it dries out in a drought, you get a lot of fuel that may ignite,” Urban said.

Why does smoke travel cross-country and change the color of the sky?

We went to a museum to find out more about what’s causing the unearthly images in the sky.

“With smoke, it’s driven into the air with the heat and then gets caught in the upper air current, so it travels over the mountains and comes straight across the country,” said Noreen Johnson Smith, president and CEO at Worcester’s EcoTarium.

Mass. or Mars? Photos of the eerie, rusty skies caused by Canadian wildfires

The way the sun looks has to do with how smoke scatters light.

“We’re seeing these bright orange and red suns because the blues aren’t able to reach our eyes at the moment,” said Murphy Florman, an educator at the museum.

How smoke affects air quality

An air quality alert for Massachusetts has been extended through all day on Thursday, with the Department of Environmental Protection saying in a statement, “elevated levels of fine particles [mean that] air quality statewide is expected to be unhealthy for sensitive groups.”

Massachusetts is under an air quality alert due to the Canadian wildfire smoke that’s made the skies dark and hazy and turned the sun into an “orange orb.” Here are the factors making the air hard to breathe for some and what medial professionals say about it.

Tufts Medical Center pulmonologist Dr. Sucharita Kher said that it’s important to be aware of the air quality where you live, especially if you’re going to be spending time outside. The conditions Massachusetts has been experiencing are especially harmful to those with heart or lung disease.

“The symptoms of that can be tightness in the chest, they can experience more wheezing, they can have more swelling in their airways leading them to cough more, produce more phlegm,” she said. “All of that ultimately leading to worsening symptoms of that underlying disease.”

Needham pharmacist Kevin Ryan said certain medications can help with symptoms, such as histamines like Claritin or Zyrtec, as is wearing an N-95 mask.

“If you feel like you’re doing fine outside, that’s great. If you if you don’t feel like you can breathe effectively, then limit your exposure,” he said.

Canadian wildfire, smoke map

The Gorham, New Hampshire police chief has been placed on administrative leave following the release of a video showing a physical altercation inside the police station. 

In the station’s security footage — acquired by Stephen Gregory, of Berlin, New Hampshire, who sent it to WMUR, the outlet reported — Chief Jimmy Willhoite is seen grabbing a man by the throat and shoving him against a wall. 

“Due to the allegations involving our Chief of Police, he has been placed on administrative leave while the allegations are being investigated,” Town Manager Joe Hemings said in a statement to Boston.com. Hemmings denied to comment further on the allegations. 

Gregory told WMUR that the recording captures a confrontation between him and Willhoite that escalated when the chief grabbed Gregory by the neck and pushed him against the station wall. 

Prior to the incident, Gregory was attending the annual Fourth of July carnival in Gorham with his wife and saw a man who, he says, threatened to stab him about two months earlier. 

After the man allegedly yelled at him, Gregory went to the police station to report him — and then the confrontation with Willhoite happened, Gregory told WMUR. 

The state’s Department of Justice Public Integrity Unit and NH Police Standard and Training Council is investigating the incident, Hemmings said.  

The New Hampshire Attorney General’s office told Boston.com that it would “neither confirm nor deny any potential New Hampshire Department of Justice Public Integrity Unit matter,” citing state privacy laws. 

Town officials said Gregory was arrested that night and charged with simple assault and disorderly conduct, though Gregory disputes he was arrested, WMUR reported.

“The safety of our community and the integrity of our law enforcement agencies are top priorities for the Town,” Hemmings said. “We take all allegations of misconduct seriously.”