Mainers who were all in for Graham Platner should take some time to figure out how they got it so wrong. They should ask themselves why they ignored so many warning signs to embrace a mystery man with a quirky background.
Sure, Platner’s undeniable charisma came through loud and clear every time he took the stage and often in front of the cameras. I felt best about him after a long off-the-record chat in the spring. In person, he comes across as a good guy with his heart in the right place.
From the start, however, Platner was an odd choice to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
Few Mainers had ever heard of him before he was highlighted by the New York Times as the progressive choice to take on our aging senator. Despite covering Maine politics for the past decade, I had no idea who he was.
Even then, Platner seemed impressive on the stump and worth considering.
When the so-called Nazi tattoo set off alarm bells last fall, many Democrats decided rather quickly that they could ignore it. After all, Platner had the tattoo covered up. But the tattoo debacle revealed what had troubled me from the beginning: we simply didn’t know who this guy was.
Platner’s supporters kept telling me that he’d learned from the nutty things he wrote on Reddit and understood why the tattoo bothered many people. They chalked all of that, and the growing talk of an iffy past with women, down to traumatized errors of his youth.
But none of it was nonsense he engaged in at age 20 or something. A lot of it was still happening in the past five or six years. It wasn’t clear that Platner had ever seriously addressed the darkness that resulted in some of the idiocy he expressed online, let alone the problems he had with women and alcohol.
I watched in horror as Platner backers trashed Genevieve McDonald, a former state representative from Stonington, for jumping off the Platner bandwagon and refusing to remain mum about her worries.
Today, of course, most of us realize Platner is unfit to serve. Some of his fans have expressed surprise that he could credibly be accused of rape, as was reported Tuesday, but it seems that most of them, well, they knew.
That’s why it took a nanosecond in political time for every significant politician who had endorsed him to yank their support after Politico broke the story. Rarely has someone flying so high taken such a nosedive.
Platner is done. As I write, everyone is just waiting for him to make it official.
What’s important now is that those who looked up to him, who shared his dreams and hoped for his success, take the time to absorb the lesson of his candidacy.
One big reason to turn to experienced hands for high office is that people like Platner, without political backgrounds, have never been appropriately tested or vetted. The less we know about a candidate going in, the more likely we’re going to find they had no business jumping into a campaign.
For voters, this sorry saga says: Be more wary. Ask more questions. Listen a whole lot harder to anyone who raises doubts, especially if they might have information the rest of us don’t yet.
My message to voters is: Don’t let Platner’s failings make you give up on his politics. We’re only going to do better if the idealism that propelled him into public life survives. If it can put down deeper roots, or come from a more deeply rooted place, it can find success.