As Graham Platner’s Senate campaign in Maine crumbles, Democrats find themselves exchanging emotional support and strategic advice amid the fallout.
Many are likening Platner’s scandal-induced exit to the dramatic 2024 presidential race, where Joe Biden bowed out in early July, handing the nomination to his Vice President, Kamala Harris.
This parallel underscores a growing sense of despair among Democrats regarding their prospects of capturing the Maine seat, currently held by Republican Susan Collins, which is pivotal for reclaiming Senate control.
Some of the despondency arises from Harris’s insistence that her overwhelming defeat to Donald Trump was mainly due to her receiving the nomination just 107 days before the election.
In her book, framed around this very issue, Harris suggests this timing was to blame for her downfall. However, she avoids acknowledging that her candidacy failed to resonate, lacking a clear, compelling alternative to the previous administration’s unpopular policies.
Asked what she would do differently in a slobbering appearance on “The View,” she hesitated before giving the vapid response, “not a thing comes to mind.”
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Well, then. Platner’s replacement will have even less time than Harris did, with party honchos in Maine saying they will pick a new candidate at a convention late this month.
Time is clearly important, but there’s another similarity to the Harris campaign that is also highly relevant to events in Maine.
Notably, Platner is in major ways a carbon copy of Harris’ disastrous choice for a running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz.
Tampon Tim’s personality, appearance and background reflect some of the same features that led many Maine Dems to fall in love with Platner.
Both men are beefy and gruff, military veterans and blue collar by nature, making them distinct from the angry soy boys and arch feminists who are the dominant faces of a party moving further and further left.
At the same time, Walz and Platner managed to talk the talk of the progressive activists. They looked like the Dems’ idea of a Republican, but bought into the mantra of virtually unlimited immigration, higher taxes, anti-police rhetoric and the cultish fever on transgender and racial issues.
After Trump’s 2024 victory, Walz, speaking on a podcast, conceded that he was selected by Harris simply to appeal to blue-collar, white male voters, who Democrats have been losing for decades.
“I was on the ticket, quite honestly, because I could code talk to white guys watching football, fixing their truck, doing that, then I could put them at ease,” he said.
Although his biography and boisterous manner convinced Dems he was the Everyman they needed, the targeted demographic weren’t impressed. The ticket won just 43 percent of the male vote nationwide, while Trump and JD Vance pulled in 55 percent.
In Platner’s case, Maine Dems’ hunger for a progressive “real man” was so overpowering that his backers were willing to overlook his huge Nazi tattoo, as if that’s common among real men.
GQ Magazine, in a glowing profile that aimed to explain the appeal of his campaign, declared him “the virile, earthy working man many male politicians wish they were.”
Sufficient Maine voters bought into the hype by looking past Platner’s vile social media posts and the complaints of his excessive drinking and sexual misconduct, some of which he conceded.
Neither did it matter to Sen. Bernie Sanders, who endorsed him. Or to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who called him “my kinda man” despite his reportedly saying that victims of rape should “take some responsibility for themselves and not get so f–ked up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to?”
Victim complex
Nor was it a problem for his supporters when he reportedly wrote “I dig it” next to an online video showing Hamas terrorists murdering Israeli soldiers.
None of that was enough to stop or even slow down a train that was bound for glory. Only when Politico reported credible allegations last week that he had committed sexual assault with a former girlfriend, who went public, did the dam break, with Sanders and Warren abandoning ship.
Two days later, Platner faced the music and quit the race.
Even then, he hesitated and threatened to stay on the ballot and fight it out with the party before withdrawing as the deadline approached.
“We went toe-to-toe with one of the most entrenched political systems in the history of the world, and we won,” Platner said in announcing his withdrawal in a social media video. “And now they are not going to let us have it, not if it’s me.”
Contrition was not on his mind, as he defiantly insisted that “We’re not doing it because of the allegations; we’re doing it because of the structures that are being taken away from us by those in power.”
See, he’s a victim. Maybe that’s why so many Dems liked him.
In the Trump era, victimhood is the engine of the Socialist-driven left.