Riffing off my Substack version of this, earlier and shorter, Platner is now deflated, past tense. He has "suspended" his campaign. Two years ago, I had people attack me when I said Brainworm Bobby was quitting the presidential race after he "suspended" his campaign. We all know what it means, so STFU Brainworm MAGAt MA-HAt asshats. (I know other sites have reported he has "ended" his campaign or is "resigning" as the Democratic nominee, but this one is better.)
Most politically minded people have probably already heard the claims that Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner raped a woman he was dating. I saw that via Payday Report, on my blogroll. There, Mike Elk added that Hasan Piker found it believable.
Meanwhile, some people are claiming, like this Rhombus Ticks, that it's all a setup. Unfortunately, I was replying to his reply to someone else, so I can't counterblock him. Damn, Substack needs to fix that. Other readers of this? Please block him. (He claimed this was all a nothingburger compared to Epstein, was a conspiracy, and also that the self-implosion/takedown of Al Franken was also a conspiracy.)
This is no surprise.
The Platner engine was leaking oil at the start of the week. A Maine teevee station notes as part of its story that he had already postponed some campaign events. Also per that? Jenny Racicot did not come out of nowhere. She first spoke to the NYT five days before the Maine primary, without mentioning details.
This Substack, a piece at All Your Days, says he talked to staff Monday night and, by saying he's in control of who replaces him, indicates he's planning on resigning — for the right replacement.
So how did we get here? Oppo research done on the cheap, per All Your Days:
Here’s how the disaster unfolded. The Wall Street Journal reports that Dan Moraff, the progressive strategist who recruited Platner and ran his launch, asked a Democratic research firm for an expedited, cut-rate review of the candidate rather than the thorough background check that has become standard in major Senate races. That would have been a weeks-long process costing roughly $20,000. Instead, New York-based Northside Research delivered a brief risk-assessment memo in three days for $6,250, federal disclosures show, in place of the usual research book that should have run hundreds of pages.
Northside’s memo flagged some of Platner’s problematic Reddit posts, but it missed the full trove. It also missed the death’s-head tattoo—the one resembling the Nazi SS Totenkopf—that Platner wore for 18 years before learning, he says, what it evoked. It similarly missed the sexually explicit texts he sent to several women after his 2023 marriage—texts his own wife discovered and reported to his aides, who decided they were a private matter.
Ooops.
I suspect that Dan Moraff will be toxic from here on out, as will Northside Research. According to search-engine grabs of this paywall-protected WSJ piece, Moraff said he wanted to blow up how Democrats do campaigns. Well, he blew up two things — his reputation and probably Dems' chances of regaining the Senate.
That said, it's not just Moraff doing stupidities, per All Your Days:
In North Carolina, Schumer and the party’s Senate campaign arm reached into the primary and anointed Cal Cunningham, a clean-cut veteran who, the Associated Press noted, was a star recruit of the minority leader himself. Cunningham was straight out of central casting for the Schumer biopic, perhaps, but in October 2020, his sexts to a woman who was not his wife became public. Sound familiar? Nonetheless, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee shoveled millions more into the race. Cunningham lost a must-win state by two points after leading in the polls, as Sabato’s Crystal Ball recounts.
Shock me. There's more there.
As for Northside? If this is the correct website, the teh suck minimalist design itself speaks volumes. Per a description of the company, the website and head honcho Jonathan Davis on this piece, that has to be it. A 2023 issue of the Intelligencer has a bit more. Coming next? Finger-pointing, of course.
This guy, meanwhile, answers the Rhombus Ticks nutters, beyond what Elk said.
That said, many others. like Rhombus Ticks, are surely wondering "why now"? (Some, like him, aren't wondering, in reality, they're "just asking questions" about both "why now" and "who is she"?)
It appears the June story was a "marker," if you will. But, with Mills having suspended her campaign, who could pick up that marker? The one real progressive alternative, Amanda LaFlamme, had to run as a write-in after not getting enough signatures. See my coverage here.
That said, in writing earlier about the Totenkopf, I mentioned oppo research! And other "progressive" concerns that a leftist non-Democrat would have! Here:
Obviously, I can't read all his deleted Reddit posts. They were written years later. For someone who claims they were leftist by then, a certain amount of them cut against that grain. And, yes, PTSD is serious and real. But, per the Latin bon mot, "in vino veritas," PTSD doesn't necessarily cause an "alt-persona" to arise.
This also show that he's a political novice. Experienced candidates running for something as high as a US Senate seat do "oppo research" on themselves to find out in advance what opponents might dig up, and to be prepared in advance.
I didn't think to check his Wiki much in advance. I'm as troubled by the fact that his family was moneyed enough to send him to an elite prep school like Hotchkiss as anything else, even if he got financial aid. Did he get booted, though? That's not the only high school he attended. The other is also private, originally Catholic but now nonreligious.
Still rings true. (Speaking of, why was his eliteness not called out more? Or, in light of all of the above, did nobody look at why he dropped out of Hotchkiss?)
==
Addenda to this versus my Substack post Tuesday.
I'm sure after July 27, there will be more time to answer all of this. (That is the deadline for Maine Dems getting a replacement, assuming he resigns by July 13.)
Per a Drop Site reporter's Twitter, Platner volunteers want him to resign and have a candidate: Troy Jackson.
Contra Black Twitter like this guy retweeting this?
Yeah, you were stanning for a Black candidate like Kamala Harris the Zionist genocidalist, while I, actually skeptical, rejected Jill Stein as a hypocrite and voted for the Hispanic Communist Claudia de la Cruz.
Or per first guy retweeting this?
Sure, Blacks have a higher degree of skepticism. Where are the Black "Nones," let alone agnostics or atheists? And, Black buy-in to evangelical Christianity explains Black sex on the down low and greater AIDS rates.
If you're going to be tribalist, you're going to get it back.
Per other thoughts in general, note that I noted months ago, besides the other issues, "Hotchkiss," meaning I didn't totally buy the "working class" narrative. Note per my observance about Amanda LaFlamme and her getting generally shunned by Maine unions that I further didn't buy it.
Speaking of? I called out Klipp, who had a non-apology for previous support for Platner, which arguably, per a previous post he linked, included support for Platner deliberately not being given a full vetting by Moraff. In a highly competitive primary, you have the money to spend on an additional $20K or whatever for a more thorough vetting.
Here's what I said in restacking him.
Per my own piece, with link to an older Blogger piece, I DID WONDER, long before the Maine primary, if Platner’s team had done in-depth self-oppo research. We of course now know the answer was “no,” and that this was deliberate. Did you wonder about that in the past?
Per this comment near the end of your current piece:
Ruling out anyone with Reddit post-level flaws bars millions of otherwise decent people from politics. The only people left are the exact kind of squeaky-clean, McKinsey consultant politicians that was the entire point of my piece in the first place.
You’re presenting a twosiderish fake dilemma and at least backdoor endorsing a campaign whose recruiter deliberately did this.
You’re been around this biz yourself at the national level long enough, you know that’s why real self-oppo-research is done.
Per my piece, Mainers had options to Platner and Mills, and unfortunately one of them in particular never got traction. Feel free to report about that, and other things, next time.
Ken also boo-hooed about Popehat Ken White's callout of him.
I wrote about that on Substack; see there rather than a repeat here.
I do want to add that it's far more than Popehat kicking Ken in the nads, and others are now kicking him for his smug take on Popehat. Here's a good one; it also calls out Ryan Grim. There are plenty of others.
I think Ken is trying to insist that he was just and only writing about upsetting the Democratic politics as usual applecart. But, the terms and field of debate aren't yours alone to define, Ken.
To put it another way? If you have shit in one hand and New Coke shit in the other, you still have shit in both hands.
And, Ken, until you admit that, you're still going to be holding shit, and stanning for shit, too often.
Why didn't you ask how somebody who went to an elite prep school like Hotchkiss got labeled as a workingman populist? For that matter, why didn't you ask if he dropped out, or if he got kicked out?
Mike Elk on Payday Report HAS, in fact, raised that issue, in his piece about Platner's possible and hoped-for replacement, Troy Jackson:
While many complained that Graham Platner, who hailed from a wealthy family, presented himself as a “working class” guy, the 58-year-old Jackson grew up in poverty in the north of the state and has a history of direct action as a unionized logger.
That said, Mike links to David Dayen at The American Prospect, who notes that the Maine Democrat Party could squeeze Platner supporters in what appears to not allow voters a chance at participating in choosing Platner's replacement. Give the whole thing a read.
Mike also, in another piece, has a callout of Moraff based on personal experience.
Jeet Heer, with this subhed:
Democratic leaders have rightfully lost credibility. But that’s no excuse for political adventurers to seize the moment and pump up false saviors.
followed by this:
This is even though, during his rapid ascent and equally quick plummet from political stardom, Platner waved more red flags than the track marshals in a hundred auto races. Among the major scandals he endured were: the Nazi tattoo on his chest; six years of employment as a private defense contractor (in other words, as a mercenary) for the firm then known as Blackwater; a history of lurid, misogynist, and generally inflammatory Reddit posts; a recent pattern of sexting other women while married; and allegations of abusive behavior towards women.
Yeah, Blackwater? Should have been immediately disqualifying besides his problems with women.
and Katha Pollitt are also weighing in on the bad vetting, as I await Klipp sticking his turtle head out of his shell.
And it keeps getting worse. Looks like somebody should have vetted Moraff better.
Mike Elk reports that Pittsburgh-area Congresscritter Summer Lee booted him from her 2022 campaign over allegations of sexual harassment against HIM. Maybe that's why he just gave Platner nickel-version vetting.
And more yet, with a sort-of callout of Bernie Sanders, too:
You GO, Mike.
While campaign videos distributed by the Sanders campaign described Platner as a working-class oyster farmer, this was far from the truth. Platner’s grandfather, Warren Platner, was a wealthy interior designer and architect who designed the iconic restaurant Windows of the World on top of the World Trade Center and the headquarters of the Ford Foundation.
His father was a wealthy attorney and his mother owned a high-end restaurant outside of Bar Harbor, Maine. His father gave him the money to buy a house and his mother bought his oysters for her high-end restaurant outside of the tourist haven of Acadia National Park. Platner lived on a $60,000-a-year military pension and by all accounts did not struggle to pay bills.
This is all related to the "Hotchkiss" stuff that caught my attention. Platner WAS and IS NOT a "working class everyday person."
And? Maroff has now fired back, calling Elk part of the political establishment. What a laugh. (And he did it in the New York Post.)
Will Klip do the same?
Meanwhile, Brains, with an assist from Ted Rall going down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole, is staking out at least partially the same stance. Shock me. It is interesting to note only 4 comments to and 14 reposts of that Shit, counting mine. Ted not having that much reach any more? Did he ever?
