Kissin' Cousins: Troy Jackson's Senate Campaign Just Got Really Weird

RedState 

Everyone knew there was more to learn about Troy Jackson, the man chosen by Maine Democrats to replace the contemptible Graham Platner in challenging incumbent Republican Susan Collins for her Senate seat, but what surfaced Thursday is next level weird.

Because Jackson served in the Maine statehouse for years, we already knew certain things about him. He likes to play fast and loose with mortgage finance laws. He throws water bottles at people to intimidate them.

There were lots of whispers that opposition research had uncovered some pretty spicy stuff about Jackson, but no one knew exactly what would be revealed in a slow drip leading up to November. Affairs? Drugs? Money laundering? Nazi tattoos? The mafia? 

We weren't entirely sure.

In what is likely to be the first of many reveals to come, the folks at Maine Wire have discovered that Jackson has romantically partnered up with his second cousin and the two have produced offspring. Now, shacking up and procreating with your cousin isn't illegal in Maine, but, let's be honest, it's a little weird in this day and age. But, hey, he found a unique way to out-Platner Platner.

Here's what Maine Wire discovered. It all starts in Jackson's hometown of Allagash, Maine.

The tiny St. John River Valley town of Allagash (population 240) has long been the butt of Maine jokes about its handful of last names and family trees that don’t so much branch as tangle.

Now Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Troy Dale Jackson, 58, and on his fifth pacemaker, finds his own ancestry under the same microscope that eventually ran his predecessor, oyster hobbyist Graham Platner, out of American politics and into hiding.

At this point, genealogy enters the chat.

Allagash tipsters and genealogical records confirm that Jackson’s longtime significant other, Lana Pelletier — his high school sweetheart and the mother of his two adult sons, Chace and Camden — is, in fact, his second cousin by blood.

Jackson and Pelletier share the same great-grandparents: Thomas Pelletier and Edith Thibodeau. Thomas and Edith’s daughter Albertine was Troy’s grandmother; their son Louis Sr. was Lana’s grandfather. That makes Troy and Lana second cousins on the Pelletier line.

The outlet noted that Jackson and his lifemate, who are not believed to be married, are well within their legal right to cohabitate as second cousins. However, that still may be too close for comfort for some of their neighbors, or, as Maine Wire put it, "close enough for small-town knowing glances, distant enough that the law and biology shrug."

I'd hazard this is just a taste of things to come. Keep in mind, we're just now entering into the summer doldrums and many voters aren't yet enthused about the November elections. The closer we get, the more that will be revealed about Troy Jackson.

Of note also is that the kissin' cousins revelation didn't come from the Republican Party, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, or the Collins campaign, which means they are likely holding their fire for September and perhaps a big October surprise.