I’ve avoided discussing Graham Platner here all this time. I could tell early in his rise that his campaign was going to be an ugly mess that was going to tempt a lot of good people to support him. Bernie Sanders endorsed him!
Right away, I thought “Are there no working class progressive candidates in Maine who don’t sport a Nazi tattoo?”
Then there were the old internet posts, and I thought, “Are there no working class progressive candidates in Maine who don’t have a history of internet bigotry?”
Then we got the accounts of crude drunken behavior on dates, and I thought, “Are there no working class progressive candidates in Maine who don’t treat women with disrespect?”
Now the latest damning accusation has emerged, prompting Platner to finally drop out, and I thought, “Are there no working class progressive candidates in Maine who haven’t raped someone?”
So I was useless on this issue, because I was too busy backing away from this growing clusterfuck. Rebecca Watson has a more forthright response.
Let’s learn to more quickly recognize disqualifying characteristics in our candidates, OK? How about if we don’t make excuses for them anymore?
Suggested background reading: The Beans of Egypt, Maine
Yeah, I was dubious about Platner from the beginning and even said something online.
.1. There were some early Red Flags about the guy, that people were determined to ignore.
.2. The other issue is that Platner doesn’t have any sort of political track record.
He comes from nowhere and is running for a high office, US Senator from Maine.
Really, for a first job that is a big step.
He should have run for lower level local offices first and established himself as a known person, so we can make informed decisions.
These would be state and local positions such as state senator or representative for the state of Maine, etc..
He can still do this and even possibly redeem himself.
Doesn’t look like this is going to happen though.
Red Flags and no track record.
What could go wrong here?
Ask the Democratic party in Maine about that right now.
I think not making excuses for them is going to be hard. Many regular commenters here do. Mano Singham, to my disappointment, has. Mano, a number of years ago, was insistent that the “Bernie Bro” was a myth. Now, one of his complaints that I recall that I will grant him is the Bernie Bro was poorly defined. But I felt then and still do now is that many viewed someone who spouted progressive political views while treating women terribly as the primary indication of a Bernie Bro. Platner very much fits what I felt a Bernie Bro was. For people like myself, a big concern with the Bernie Bro was (and still is) that they would push voters away. Platner is pushing the worst-case scenario: A Bernie Bro candidate that causes the Republicans to win what should have been a winnable seat…though Mainers have cut Susan Collins way more slack than she deserves. And there wasn’t really a better Democratic candidate for the primary. Janet Mills? Really, Maine?
On that note, I fear that goes to the reason so many of us make excuses: We have so few progressive candidates that we want to push through every one we can because the alternative is often a boring establishment candidate. But we really must be vigilant with self-reflection because running shitty so-called progressive candidates makes us look bad as does letting shitty so-called progressives speak for us.