I’m still in mourning over the whole Graham Platner thing.
Last week, Maine Gov. Janet Mills dropped out of the Democratic primary to take on the squishy, spineless Republican Sen. Susan Collins. That makes Platner the presumptive nominee in November. God help us.
Collins is the annual winner of the Senate’s Talks a Good Game Award. She throws words of moderation at her moderate constituents and then votes the MAGA line every time they actually need her vote. She needs to be defeated. And somebody like Mills, a popular pol who has won statewide, might have been just the ticket. Or maybe not. More on that later.
Instead, my party will nominate a guy who had a Nazi symbol tattooed to his chest. Platner claims that he didn’t know what it was, which leads us to one of two conclusions. One, he did know what it was and he’s lying. Or two, he didn’t know what it was and he’s an idiot. Take your pick.
He’s also suggested that women worried about sexual assault should “not get so fucked up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to”. He further commented, “To avoid rape women should ‘Act like an adult for (Christ)sake'”.
Other posts included using homophobic slurs while arguing with other users, referring to military officers as “gay” in a derogatory manner, and making jokes about “gay chicken”. In a 2018 post, he wrote: “I suppose some gay fellas still prefer holes as well. Party on top bros”.
He’s since apologized for all of this, which of course, Collins will accept and move on to debate the issues. After all, people, who among us hasn’t said or done misogynistic, anti-semitic or anti-gay things now and then? Or, I don’t know, maybe she’ll ignore the apologies and beat the bejesus out of him with one negative ad after another for three or four months straight. Hard to guess what she might do.
Moreover, Platner is wholly unqualified to be a United State senator. He’s an oyster fisherman or farmer or whatever the hell it is you do with oysters. And no, I’m not being an elitist. I made exactly the same argument against Alex Lasry, who thought he deserved to be a Senator from Wisconsin with no qualifications save for his dad’s billion dollars. Lasry had some no-show job his father ginned up for him as an “executive” for the Milwaukee Bucks, which the elder Lasry co-owned. As soon as the kid lost, dad sold his share of the team and the family retreated back to Manhattan, where there are some decent restaurants, for cryin’ out loud.
But unqualified is unqualified whether that’s from above or from the grassroots. Also unqualified is Francesca Hong. She’s running for governor of Wisconsin and she’s worked in the restaurant business. Nothing wrong with that. She worked hard and it’s a tough job. It’s hard and honorable work, but it doesn’t qualify you to run an entire state. She’s also served a couple of terms in the minority in the Assembly, where she had no responsibility for making any public policy at all. And she’s leading in the Democratic primary.
Which leads us to this question: what the hell’s wrong with Democratic primary voters? Have they lost their minds?
My theory is that Platner and Hong represent what college-educated liberals think working class people are. Oh, yeah, Platner said some misogynistic and homophobic things and maybe he’s a closet Nazi, but hey, that’s authentic working class!
Now, let me hasten to add right here that it’s not like my people have covered themselves in glory. Moderate Democrats pushed Mills, who, while plenty competent, is also something like 120-years old and a tad past her prime. And it didn’t help that Chuck Schumer, slightly older than Mills, was openly touting her candidacy. There were a bunch of candidates in the primary and so, Schumer, et. al., could have picked a more appealing moderate who was younger, like maybe only 70. This is the same moderate crew that backed Andrew Cuomo over Zohran Mamdani for New York mayor. Given that choice, even I would have voted for the socialist.
My fellow moderates need to get their act together (read: dump Schumer) or we’ll lose the party — even more than we’ve already lost it — to the hard-left. And when we lose the party to the hard-left, the hard-left will lose elections to Republicans. Even crazy ones, and certainly to ones who do a good job of appearing not to be nuts, like Susan Collins.
You think we’ve got November in the bag? I’m going to bet Collins wins against the guy with the (since erased) Nazi tattoo. And if she does, we will have blown a fair chance at taking the Senate, and all in the name of misdirected populist anger.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 
The reason the “Nazi tattoo” hasn’t hurt him is that it’s not really a Nazi tattoo. It’s an insignia that predated the Nazis and that 99% of Americans would not know to associate with Nazis. This is like historians going around reminding people that much of Trump’s language (“America First” etc) comes from fascist movements of the past. Nobody cares.
As for his other online comments…you’re citing things that might cost him his job at a liberal nonprofit, not things that will hurt him with swing voters in Maine. Where have you been the past 10 years? Did you see who we elected president twice? It is disorienting to see you pivot from bemoaning political correctness on the left to demanding it.
Platner is not less qualified to be in the Senate than most of his future colleagues. I’m not nearly as far to the left as he is, but he speaks with much greater depth and clarity about public policy than most of the other empty suits in office. What experience do you imagine a U.S. senator should have? And then ask yourself if the median voter agrees with you.
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I think the median voter’s going to agree with me come November. But we’ll see. If I were a Maine resident and stuck with this awful choice, I’d vote for Platner. I’m not sure a lot of more independent Maine voters will do the same, though.
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