From TPM Reader JU …
I just listened to your post-election day podcast about Graham Platner. I agree with your much of what you said, but want to share a slightly different take. In my view, Mainers aren’t shrugging off Platner’s baggage because Trump set so low a bar. I think Mainers are hungry for public servants who are not obviously and shamelessly full of shit.
(About me: I am a women, 67, Jewish, and have lived in Maine for 40 years. I have/had all the reservations about Platner you would expect. I did not rank him first, but I am not sorry he prevailed. Like most Dems, I will vote for him in November regardless.)
Platner, I think, can and should turn the character test on its head. Character is more than just the absence of personal failure. It should mean fidelity to the Constitution, commitment to civic virtue and shared community, and progress toward a more perfect union. Collins has failed that character test in many ways and Platner knows it.
The specifics of her betrayals (her Kavanaugh vote (she just said she doesn’t regret that vote because she also voted for the three liberals on the Court); the calculated tap-dance in which she and Murkwoski always engage (vote to advance a bill, e.g., HR; but ultimately vote against it in a barely disguised game of cover-your-ass) are almost immaterial at this point. Platner is smart enough to fit these failures into broad themes: her participation in hollowing out the middle class, shielding Trump’s from the consequences of his heinous policies affecting women and members of minority groups, and the damage done to America as a result of Republican adventurism in Afghanistan and the Middle East.
In some ways, he reminds me of Reagan (who famously provided one of three answers to any and all questions: “get government off the backs of the people,” “tax cuts will lead to unprecedented prosperity,” or “the Soviets are outpacing us, therefore we need a massive military build-up.”) Like Reagan, Platner will not be thrown off his message. If he wins, I believe he will have an outsize impact on the Senate just by pulling focus.
These are not times for politics as usual, as you well know. So I guess Maine Dems have concluded, as Lincoln regarding US Grant: “We cannot spare this man; he fights!”
