Democrats in Maine had one job this year: oust Republican Sen. Susan Collins.

Instead of focusing on the task at hand, they decided to take a flier on a candidate with no experience and more baggage than the lost luggage hangar at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The party’s rank-and-file fell so in love with Graham Platner that they ignored a pile of signs warning of danger ahead.

When the inevitable crash came last week, on the heels of a credible accusation that he had raped a woman, Platner’s support evaporated within hours. It still took him several days to make his tawdry, graceless exit from the race.

Instead of sticking to the obvious script — ‘Sorry ’bout that, let’s unite’ — Platner whined about powerbrokers and the media who supposedly want to stifle reform. He used his last big moment of the campaign to foster more division.

None of that surprised me, but one thing really has: the Maine Democratic Party, put in the nearly hopeless position of finding another person for the general election ballot, has shown a finesse I never imagined possible.

With a July 27 deadline looming to name Platner’s successor, officials had to move swiftly to put something in place for a situation nobody had ever planned for.

Anyone who knows Democrats figured they’d be lucky to get the paperwork finished on time, let alone devise a reasonably open, fair-minded process to make the decision.

But that’s what they did.

“We have worked hard to create a process that is inclusive of varying viewpoints and diverse backgrounds of Democrats across the state of Maine, legally sound, and fair to all candidates who seek the nomination,” state Democratic Party Chair Charlie Dingman said Friday.

The party opened the door for any Democrat to jump in the race by Wednesday by gathering 500 signatures and issuing a statement explaining their “vision of how their campaign will continue to support and build on the currently existing grassroots energy and movement in Maine ensuring that no Mainer is left behind by their next United States Senator.”

This coming weekend, Democrats around the state will pick delegates to a special convention slated for July 25 that will use a sort of slow motion ranked-choice system to weed through the contenders until there’s a clear winner.

It’s not a simple solution or one that will make everyone happy. But that was never possible.

All the Democrats can do is make the best pick they can and then put aside their differences and focus, finally, on the task at hand.

They’re lucky to have a handful of solid potential candidates who have been tested by years in the public arena or at least many months on the campaign trail already, among them Troy Jackson, Shenna Bellows, Nirav Shah and Jordan Wood.

Whoever they pick will face a tough race. I’ve said from the start that Collins is a far better politician than she’s given credit for.

But thanks to good leadership from the party, the energy and hope Platner brought to her opposition doesn’t have to vanish along with the flawed candidate. Democrats can still win.