It’d be nice if Democrats would acknowledge that their hatred of Trump has driven them to search for and embrace many questionable candidates this year.
It'd be nice if Democrats would acknowledge that their hatred of Trump has driven them to search for and embrace many questionable candidates this year.
T he implosion of Maine’s U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner’s campaign has been an easily predicted event for months. But not only did Democrats at every level fail to uncover his background; after they learned about it, they waved it away. As late as April 18, after many of the revelations about him had come out, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) called Platner “my kind of man.”
Democrats were so desperate to find an “authentic” progressive with blue-collar roots to take on incumbent GOP Senator Susan Collins (R., Maine) that they threw due diligence out the window.
The influential progressive strategist Morris Katz told the New Yorker that the process by which he decided that Graham Platner was qualified required less time than drinking a cup of coffee. “Within a few minutes of talking to him, I was, like, ‘This guy owes it to the country to run for Senate,’” Katz recalled.
Dan Moraff, Platner’s chief consultant, prides himself on having “discovered” several progressives who will be on November ballots. As late as last month, he infamously thought that Maine voters would view Platner’s flaws as selling points in his bid against Collins.
He also actively discouraged Platner from explaining how his policy proposals would work. The Wall Street Journal reported that he “wants his candidates to back Medicare for All and characterize the Israel-Hamas conflict as a genocide, but beyond that, doesn’t believe voters care about detailed proposals.”
Indeed, after allegations about Platner’s treatment of women and fascination with Nazi symbols surfaced, The Atlantic noted:
Platner’s enthusiasts initially continued to support his campaign and reject the evidence of his misconduct. When The New York Times reported that a past girlfriend alleged he had physically abused her, the paper dismissed her testimony on account of her being a Republican, ignoring the discrepancies in Platner’s own defense. . . . [Platner] looked like the authentic working-class hero so many progressives wanted, so he had to be one.
Progressive voters also bought the illusion — Platner won an astonishing 72 percent in last month’s Democratic primary in Maine against the state’s sitting two-term governor. Thousands of Democrats from across the country donated to his campaign.
Partisans on both sides can have tunnel vision when it comes to the flaws of candidates — President Trump has his share of cult followers — but it would be nice if Democrats would acknowledge that their deranged hatred of Donald Trump has driven them to search for and embrace lots of extreme and questionable candidates this year. The victories this year of Democratic Socialists of America are classic examples of this trend.
I understand that both parties put winning first and foremost on their desired list of attributes for a candidate. But the dramatic collapse of Graham Platner shows that the kind of moral flexibility his stage managers exercised can backfire badly.
As with Kamala Harris, the same national Democrats who ignored Joe Biden’s crippling infirmities now might again have to scramble and find a candidate who can assemble a full campaign with less than four months to Election Day — a tall order.
Maybe there should be an amendment to the old adage that “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.” Don’t be so stupid that you can’t tell the difference between your blind belief in winning and the cliff you are hurtling toward.