Graham Platner's Senate Implosion

Graham Platner (D-ME)

I wasn't planning on writing about the Maine Senate race so soon after the entry of Janet Mills into the contest, assuming that it would play out for a bit before there was a major development.  Well, if you spent time online in the past few days, you know that this race has pretty dramatically changed.  But for me, it's the reactions of people online that is worth commenting on, and discussing, because I find it shocking and honestly, pretty embarrassing.  Let's talk about it.

For those who don't have a Twitter addiction, the Democratic Primary race between Gov. Janet Mills and Graham Platner, a military veteran & oyster farmer who has captured a surprisingly robust following in the short time he's been in the race, including endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders and Labor Secretary Robert Reich, has been upended by scandal.  Within days of Mills' entry into the race, which until then Platner had largely dominated the media narrative, stories began to leak about Platner's past online comments, particularly on the social media platform Reddit.  The comments, so far spread over the course of eight years, included Platner engaging in racial stereotypes about Black people, saying "all cops are bastards," stating that he was a Communist, expressing support for political violence, and stating that sexual assault survivors bear some responsibility for their assault if they were inebriated.  Platner has since blamed these posts on disillusionment and PTSD after his time in the military, while some of his supporters, most notably Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), have blamed Mills, Chuck Schumer, & the DSCC for attempting to "destroy Platner the day their hand-picked candidate entered the race."  While Mills has largely been silent (there's an old saying usually attributed to either Napoleon or Sun Tzu that states "never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake" which feels like what Mills is doing here), the likely Republican nominee, Susan Collins, has called the comments "terrible" and "offensive."

Let's address some of these things head on here.  First and foremost, Collins is right-these things are terrible and offensive, and while Collins didn't say this, I will-they are also politically-damaging.  Platner is about to run a very hard race, and he has just put a gigantic weight around his neck.  This isn't to say he can't run without it (John Fetterman, whom Platner is oftentimes compared to, had an incident where he followed a Black man with a shotgun, though in that case the Black man in question stated that he still endorsed Fetterman in the race, which likely let Fetterman off in a way Platner won't...either way, Fetterman did win that high-profile Senate contest), but he now has a gigantic handicap that the Democrats will spend the rest of this race trying to get around if he is the nominee, as Collins will make it a centerpiece of her campaign in a way that she won't have that advantage with Mills.

Next up, let's talk about Khanna.  Whether or not this was the DSCC or not (I'm not going to wade into that without evidence), I am going to assume that this came with the consent of the Mills' camp, as the timing is too coincidental not to have been something she had been sitting on.  But to complain about that I have to say: grow up.  Politics ain't beanbag, as the saying goes, and if Mills wasn't going to bring these comments out about Platner, Collins sure as hell would've in the general election.  Which would you rather have-the Democrat destroying Platner when we still have a twice-elected statewide official who can beat the Republican, or the general election where we're stuck with having to explain Platner to a host of general election voters who have sent Collins to the Senate five times, but will suddenly change their mind on the sixth for a guy they barely know who as recently as four years ago was making comments many median swing voters would find disqualifying?  Are you freaking kidding me-do you see how we might well lose the Virginia Attorney General's race for this EXACT same reason?  Of course we want this to come out now when we can go to a Plan B!

Jon Favreau

But while some of Platner's supporters, most notably former State Rep. Genevieve McDonald who was serving as his political director, have announced they can no longer support Platner as a result of these comments, a shocking amount of high-profile political figures have tried to gloss over these statements.  DNC Chair Ken Martin stated that the comments were not ones he approved of, but they were not "disqualifying."  Former Obama speechwriter and Pod Saves America host Jon Favreau looked at Platner's apology video (you can see it here) and called it "refreshingly honest, vulnerable, and human...could use more of this in politics" and Pod Saves the World host Ben Rhodes (another former Obama speechwriter) called Platner's apology "what's missing" in the Democratic Party.

I will be honest here-I feel a mountain of second-hand embarrassment on behalf of those who are defending Platner on this one.  I think there is some truth to the idea that we as a society are going to have to acknowledge that internet comments are not going to always be universally disqualifying of political candidates as Millennials & Gen Z become the dominant generations running for office.  Platner and I are the same age, and essentially the earliest age of people who were literally children when we started to have unsupervised access to the internet.  I was 14 when I got my first email address, and 19 when I got my first social media account.  While I am confident that I have not said things as offensive as Platner did (because I've never thought the way he did), I am also confident in over 25 years of being online, there are things that I disagree with that a previous me said, or things that I've done on the internet or texted that I would be embarrassed to be seen publicly.  I mean, I was discussing a blog post I wrote 8 years ago on this very site with a friend yesterday that I disagreed with part of my argument at the time.  People do change their perspectives, and the internet is forever (something that I don't think older Millennials, in particular, realized when they first were on the internet), and in an era where technology is our primary form of conversation, there are things you wouldn't want to get out that you have said.

But Platner said these things in a public forum, and he was not a "young man" when he said them despite what some are claiming (it always amazes me that for straight white men running for high office, being a young man seems to extend until your early 40's while for everyone else it seems to end at around 24).  In 2021, Platner was 37 years old...older than Jon Ossoff or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both of whom were already in Congress by then.  To pretend this is a youthful discretion is ridiculous-he was a grown ass man when he made these comments.  He talks about coming from a male-dominated place, where crude humor and offensive language are commonplace in the video.  I'm sorry, but that feels an awful lot like calling this "just locker room talk" which I think we all know as Democrats we wouldn't allow a Republican to get away with, so why are we allowing a Democrat to use it as an excuse?  I'm not saying that we don't forgive Platner if he's made a genuine change-if he wants to be an activist or supporter of the Democratic Party, let's give him the grace to change his viewpoints.  But being a US Senator is not a consolation prize-it's being granted access to the most exclusive club in the world and makes you one of the most powerful people on Earth.  It's the sort of thing where one mistake should disqualify you.  And it's too valuable to use as a learning tool, one where we try to teach voters that it's okay to give people a second chance.  Susan Collins has dispatched three members of Congress (past, present, or future at the time) in her runs for the US Senate, as well as a House Speaker and a future Secretary of State.  She is not an easy candidate to run against, and Platner comes into the race the least-qualified of anyone who has tried to dispatch her.  Beating her is more important than proving a point-the sins Graham Platner has made are not disqualifying him from being a redeemed, good person if he makes true amends (I don't doubt the sincerity of his apology)...but they sure as hell disqualify him from getting the nomination in the most important congressional race of the 2026 midterms.

That "least-qualified" is where I want to end this, as it's truly where the shock is here from the past few days.  Platner is not an established politician with a longtime following.  When Al Franken resigned in 2018, there was a lot of ire & pushback from people in the Democratic Party who had liked & supported Franken for decades.  He'd been a US Senator for ten years and a political commentator for years before that (as well as an entertainer).  It was understandable that people wouldn't want to turn on a guy they'd spent huge swaths of their lives devoted toward.  But Graham Platner entered this race in August, and that was very much the first time anyone has known of him as a politician.  There are things in your fridge that you've known longer than Platner's been in this race.  And yet Favreau & Rhodes are acting like he's a huge, longtime player in politics whom it would be a genuine loss to see leave the race.  This is not a loss-this is a candidate similar to MJ Hegar, Randy Bryce, and Amy McGrath whom the national media loved because he looks like a Republican but talks like a Democrat.  That's not a totally un-winning combo (the aforementioned Fetterman is the best example, but Jared Golden & Marie Gluesenkamp Perez are also solid reference points of Democrats who used that aesthetic to get into Congress...I understand the strategy behind the initial support of Platner as it's not without merit), but to pretend this is a giant loss is silly, particularly given you know nothing about this man (and have tacitly condoned his racially & sexually offensive comments without knowing what is coming next by so quickly forgiving him...and I suspect there's more to come).  I think that Mills is not perfect (we need to spend the next 13 months getting her to find some wiggle room on the filibuster, and her age is definitely not an asset), but she's better than Platner...and she doesn't come with a gigantic amount of doubt about what other opposition research might be coming.  Supporting Platner at this point feels less about trying to prove a point or winning a certain way, and more about being willing to lose a crucial race just to avoid admitting you were wrong.