MARK PENN: Democrats ignored every warning sign in Graham Platner’s Senate disaster
Federalist No. 62, written by James Madison, outlines the nature of the Senate and the qualifications of senators — they were older, more removed from politics, with six-year staggered terms, and meant to cool the hot-tempered passions of the House of Representatives. Guess Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner and the party organizers didn’t read that one.
They are recruiting senators with exactly the opposite qualifications — inexperienced, reckless, flamboyant and unstable. Platner was unqualified from Day One — he had zero life accomplishments of any note, his political viewpoints were extreme, and he had no understanding of the complex issues that a senator would need to be effective. No matter — Democratic leaders showered him with support as a new kind of TikTok Democrat.
And that is typically what the left is recruiting and selling to its voters.
HOW GRAHAM PLATNER'S CAMPAIGN UNRAVELED: FROM REDDIT POSTS TO RAPE ALLEGATION
Since no responsible, mature, experienced candidate would be for far-left ideas like socialism, open borders and abolishing prisons, they need to recruit completely inexperienced cutouts like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who smile, speak forcefully and stir the passions of young voters with radical ideas on social media.
The Platner nomination fits this new mold. Brash, willing to say anything, completely unqualified. It’s the opposite of how the founders conceived of senators, but exactly what the left wants to install into the Senate so they can be the useful idiots they need elected by uninformed voters. But right at the beginning, there were questions, beginning with a Nazi tattoo.
Along with the tattoo were extreme anti-Israel views, which by themselves would not be antisemitic, but when combined with the tattoo, strongly suggested views that verged on antisemitism. Yet they seemed almost to be considered qualifying rather than disqualifying. The enthusiasm for Platner among Democratic primary voters was so strong that the sitting, experienced governor of the state ended her own campaign.
Antisemitism is anti-Americanism, and no tent of any party should be big enough to make room for it — candidates like Graham Platner should be disqualified right at the beginning.
Sporting a Nazi tattoo, along with all the online comments, from backing communism to demeaning women, should have been enough for Democratic leaders to just say no to this candidacy from the beginning, but the left-wing Democratic primary machine these days is powerful enough to nominate virtually anyone for any position and get the rest of the peanut gallery to go along and provide cover.
In contrast to Platner, Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins is the epitome of what it should mean to be a senator — she is thoughtful, experienced, works hard on behalf of her state, and has frequently stood up against her party on major votes. She was being depicted by the Democrats as a conservative thug, dismissing her real record.
The rest of the story is history now — The New York Times ran an "exposé" about Platner’s issues with women in a manner that seemed to give him a pass and downplay the accusations, which came from a Republican-leaning woman. Democrats yawned at it all until the rape allegation from a Democrat came out in the last few days, finally causing the 40 major Democratic endorsers to back off the Nazi-tattooed candidate.
But it is a disgrace for the Democratic Party that it ever endorsed someone with this kind of obvious bad character and lack of qualifications for one of the most important offices in the nation.
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It calls into question all of their endorsements and the process of selecting candidates who not only can get votes, but who have the qualities envisioned for senators.
Failing to put up qualified candidates eventually will hollow out the whole institution of the Senate and turn it into the partisan chamber the founders hoped to avoid.
