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Graham Platner’s Downfall Was All Too Predictable

Inexperienced and improperly vetted, the candidate was a disaster in the making.

Anthony Weiner must be gnashing his teeth. Al Franken too. Weiner lost his political career for sexting while married (he went to jail for sexting with a 15-year-old girl, but that came later). Franken fake-groped a sleeping woman as a joke, and was then credibly accused of groping numerous women for real. Away with him! But that was before Democratic dude-bros decided the party was dominated by “HR lady politics,” as Matt Stoller memorably put it, and that white working-class men were the real Americans, having absolutely no political experience kept you pure of heart, and that being “rough around the edges” (Stoller again) was a testament to your authenticity.

Graham Platner shows us how that works out in practice. First, freelance progressive strategists Dan Moraff and Leanne Fan recruit him after a single meeting. They’re smitten: He’s the real deal, a former Marine who after some years of PTSD and heavy drinking has settled into small-town Maine life as an oyster farmer and married man. He’s got a “gravelly voice”—always a plus. Joined by Morris Katz, the man who brought Zohran Mamdani to the world, they commission a quick vetting on the cheap. It doesn’t hurt that Platner is good-looking, charismatic, a great public speaker and energetic campaigner, competing in the primary with 78-year-old governor Janet Mills, aka the Establishment, in the race to unseat longtime Republican Senator Susan Collins. And so the legend of Platner, man of the people, is........

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