During my 45 years in DC as a Navy Captain and federal official, I could not help but notice that the majority of people in Congress were not adept at critical reasoning. Now and then, I would identify bills that overlooked unintended negative consequences and help get them reworded to minimize them. As any lobbyist will likely affirm after 1 beer, legislators are rather easy to talk into promoting something they view as likely to get them re-elected. Most legislators are nice, affable, sociable folks. They are just not deep thinkers. Supposedly, they have staff for that - and many do.
In that environment, it is not a stretch to see that the Platners in politics are not as rare as the MSM's coverage might suggest.
Working my way through college, I worked as a private investigator. I checked out candidates for executive promotions, high-level new hires, and people applying for insurance policies. It was great work because my working hours were flexible enough to not miss classes. I soon realized that it was not very tricky to find skeletons in people's closets and ghosts hiding under beds. Just chatting up neighbors, landlords, and even the police, negative history would seep out in conversations that I could later verify for my clients. So I wonder, what the heck do party operatives do to explore the fitness of potential candidates? Obviously, the answer is not very much.
What bothers me at this point is that someone is stone cold lying, and I doubt it is Racicot. And I was thinking about Thomas and Kavanaugh. How do you go through life having lied so blatantly like that?
Q. How do you go through life having lied so blatantly like that?
A. You're a Republican, which also means you ultimately protect White Men and their supremacy, so you get a free ride from the media, rich donors and other GOP types.
Although I should not have been surprised, in response to the Platner controversy, my jaw dropped to the floor when the lying Kevin McCarthy had the gall to say: "The one thing I know about Republicans is that when we had a very bad candidate, we didn't vote for that person. We walked away."
Are you F-ing kidding me? Seriously? Kev, have you had a lobotomy? Just to refresh your faulty memory, let's start with the most vile worst of the worse: DJT. Moving on , there's Ken Paxton, Matt Gaetz, Roy Moore (the troll who ran for a Senate seat in AL), the current Secretary of Defense, Chris Collins and Duncan Hunter who were both re-elected to Congress in spite of indictments for insider trading and campaign corruption to name just a few.
Granted, there have been Dem scoundrels too. But, for Kev to get on his high horse with this faux "holier than thou" schtick would be laughable if it weren't so outrageous.
Yet again, the Dems have a tough challenge on their hands (see Biden's disastrous debate performance in the 2024 presidential race that resulted in the end of his campaign). It appears that Mainers are up to the task and are working to implement a process that will result in a viable candidate who can put the mealymouthed, pearl-clutching "I have concerns" Susan Collins out to pasture.
I was ROFLing at that one, or would have been if my dog hadn't been asleep on my foot. The current crop of Republicans seem to have no institutional memory, or any memory at all. True, if my memories were that awful, I'd be in serious denial, or maybe I would have developed a split, Jekyll/Hyde personality.
Aside from a smattering of You Tube videos and related Substack publishing, I had never heard of Platner. It is my proximity to his state that caught my attention, being a New Englander who has traveled extensively. I thought he was the real deal, I was fooled as were many others. Now I know. His appeal as a "manly" man is not without allure to many of us who are the real deals but as I have found throughout my life in the trenches of male-dominated jobs, posturing men usually have something to hide or compensate for. Give me an FDR any day. I won't get fooled again but these days, who knows.
FDR and my grandpa went through polio at about the same time. FDR and Lincoln are what used to be what this country expected, now it's different, to say the least.
"posturing men usually have something to hide" Speaking as a woman, I can vouch for that. I can also vouch that men of that sorry sort are by far more likely to blame their insecurities on the women in the workplace.
Thank you, Liz. I noticed early on that the Pod guys seemed willing to give him a pass while the women—Alex Wagner—were always more skeptical. I remember listening to Tommy Viteor’s interview with Platner after the tattoo and it drove me crazy how he seemed to be treating him with kid gloves—I kept myself that the Pod guys aren’t journalists, but still.
Alas, political journalists act a lot like the Pod guys. Most political reporters are either well-off white guys or at the very least, have their salaries and health care benefits paid by their corporate owners, i.e. well-off white guys.
The Pod Save America hosts were not pro Platner. Their position was let the voters of Maine vote and decide for themselves. They were also worried about his back ground but not enough had come out at that time to be disqualifying. They were against the Democratic party picking a winner before a vote was cast in the primaries by Maine voters.
Platner's failings are by now well documented but please, he's a gifted speaker, tapped into anger over Collins effectively and put in hard work in Maine, appearing all over the place. It's why he became the nominee. But, yeah, better vetting, people, still feeling very burnt over Fetterman.
When I first heard of Platner and thought he was one who would beat Susan Collins, it had nothing to do with who he appeared to be. He expressed the frustration that so many people feel. Who he is and what he did were secondary. Frustrated voters are tired of the standard bearer. They want someone who will fight for them, particularly against the Epstein Class. Watching our taxpayer dollars go to a Country that has universal Healthcare and slaughters babies, makes you blind to someone's past. Secondarily his campaign promised to build an infrastructure that would stay in Maine, regardless of the outcome of his campaign. Watching all the money that was spent on the Harris Campaign ( $1 billion) and see it all leave the states and communities where the people worked, is just too hard to swallow. The Obama campaign tried to build and leave an infrastructure behind, only to watch it be destroyed by entrenched party loyalist who wanted money for consultants. People want to see that shit destroyed and they didn't care what he did when he was a drunk, a soldier or an immature prep-school brat. Shades of DJT- without military service. People are angry, Frustrated and tired. Samuel Adam's was no choir boy.
But would he really fight in the end? I agree that his words about taking on the oligarchs etc… were great. But this is a very flawed person who lied repeatedly—how could you trust that he would do what he said he was going to do?
Thank you for this article. I'm not sure why so many people thought that electing someone with no legislative experience to the Senate would be a good idea. Legislating is not easy. I also noted that when the news broke that ended Platner's campaign, too many commentators on various Substack sites leapt to blame the woman or argued that we could not expect our candidates to be saints. My thought was that we should expect and demand basic human decency. People were perhaps in the denial and anger stage of grief, having fallen in love with a candidate who was a facade created by clever political consultants who need to atone by giving whatever money they earned to the Maine Democratic party. There are other good candidates available, and those candidates can beat Susan Collins. Platner was only running at +2 in a state where there should be a massive blue wave. I look forward to seeing who the Democrats of Maine will put forward as their choice to run for Senator.
Is Platner out? Waiting until the freaking last freaking second to file the dropout notice? 50-50 chance he could go, “Oops, I didn’t file it right, shucks, I’m still on the ballot. So fuck all y’all!”
I can see it. Not saying it will happen, but I can see it.
Also—maybe we hold off on recruiting veterans w/ PTSD for a while? They have their own shit that is not straightforward just to be able to deal. We need to find *healthy* people to carry the weight of the party.
We need to take some of the responsibility for those who are sent to brutal wars and come back with PTSD.. especially wars we send soldiers to kill for us for political purposes like Iraq and Afghanistan. They deserve some slack and tolerance trying to recover from PTSD. Platner was on a ride and encouraged by notable people. His freakin' end came on very quickly and he still needs to process. We need healthy people yes in government. We have to learn how to nurture that.
Agreed. The political strategists or consultants or whoever—these candidates are their meal ticket. Platner was upended, swept along, and *needed* for his compelling presence & strong voice—which appealed to his ego and gave him a huge platform. Right away. Vetting thoroughly costs money & time, so here we are.
I was skeeved out by the tattoo right from the start. I thought it unlikely that he had no idea what it was for that many years. When I read about the social media crap—what I wondered first was what he was like before he enlisted.
Teenagers and young 20s still have developing prefrontal cortexes. So military service can be great for certain things but war is never ever ever a friend to a still-developing brain. And PTSD takes a long time to work through.
It sounded like he was working locally as a community organizer and he was good at it, notwithstanding his genuine character flaws and the dangerous and toxic behavior in his personal life. But if he’s doing good work at a local level, leave him to continue!! We are far too enamored of superstars and perceived saviors. We all have to do the work.
There should be a difference between being sad and relieved that Platner turned out to be a very wrong choice, and totally spiteful pieces like this. I'm disappointed frankly.
Well no that's absolutely not what I was thinking of. But what's the effing point in a post which is a drive-by shooting on ANYONE BUT ME BECAUSE I'M THE ONLY TRUE DEM is what I'm asking. Now please go back to the cave your comment crawled on out of?
The post isn't a drive by shooting. It's a completely justified "what the fuck were people thinking when they ignored the Nazi tattoo along with everything else?"
The people who kept stabbing him after, once again, the fucking NAZI TATTOO more than deserve to get yelled at. If the crowd hasn't decided to just throw away any kind of moral judgement because something something (fake) working class hero and he'd been ditched months ago we could have had a much better candidate lined up to try and unseat collins.
There were other progressive options, but no one cared because there was a white guy with a scruffy beard who said the right things without actually backing them up.
Sorry Lisa. This strikes me as quite a thorough hit piece with nothing to recommend about it. A trashing.
I would have voted for Platner if I could, not punished him. Young yes, perhaps he needed to spend a few more years becoming a political animal and proving himself in the sexual realm as others in Congress have not, depending on their party and the political atmosphere. The sexual misconduct, of a few years ago which was PTSD I believe, though not excusable, is explainable. We sent him to two + brutal wars. Platner was coming to terms with it. But in 10 years it would all surface again given our politics. That he has very progressive ideas was one other very good reason to make sure he went down.
During my 45 years in DC as a Navy Captain and federal official, I could not help but notice that the majority of people in Congress were not adept at critical reasoning. Now and then, I would identify bills that overlooked unintended negative consequences and help get them reworded to minimize them. As any lobbyist will likely affirm after 1 beer, legislators are rather easy to talk into promoting something they view as likely to get them re-elected. Most legislators are nice, affable, sociable folks. They are just not deep thinkers. Supposedly, they have staff for that - and many do.
In that environment, it is not a stretch to see that the Platners in politics are not as rare as the MSM's coverage might suggest.
Working my way through college, I worked as a private investigator. I checked out candidates for executive promotions, high-level new hires, and people applying for insurance policies. It was great work because my working hours were flexible enough to not miss classes. I soon realized that it was not very tricky to find skeletons in people's closets and ghosts hiding under beds. Just chatting up neighbors, landlords, and even the police, negative history would seep out in conversations that I could later verify for my clients. So I wonder, what the heck do party operatives do to explore the fitness of potential candidates? Obviously, the answer is not very much.
Great comment. Thought-provoking.
What bothers me at this point is that someone is stone cold lying, and I doubt it is Racicot. And I was thinking about Thomas and Kavanaugh. How do you go through life having lied so blatantly like that?
Q. How do you go through life having lied so blatantly like that?
A. You're a Republican, which also means you ultimately protect White Men and their supremacy, so you get a free ride from the media, rich donors and other GOP types.
We need a revolution in this country.
Being a white guy has a lot to do with it.
If a person is stone cold drunk then they do not remember perhaps?
What bothers me is that this case is lumped now with Thomas and Kavanaugh... and I am sure you can think of a few more people our side despises?
Although I should not have been surprised, in response to the Platner controversy, my jaw dropped to the floor when the lying Kevin McCarthy had the gall to say: "The one thing I know about Republicans is that when we had a very bad candidate, we didn't vote for that person. We walked away."
Are you F-ing kidding me? Seriously? Kev, have you had a lobotomy? Just to refresh your faulty memory, let's start with the most vile worst of the worse: DJT. Moving on , there's Ken Paxton, Matt Gaetz, Roy Moore (the troll who ran for a Senate seat in AL), the current Secretary of Defense, Chris Collins and Duncan Hunter who were both re-elected to Congress in spite of indictments for insider trading and campaign corruption to name just a few.
Granted, there have been Dem scoundrels too. But, for Kev to get on his high horse with this faux "holier than thou" schtick would be laughable if it weren't so outrageous.
Yet again, the Dems have a tough challenge on their hands (see Biden's disastrous debate performance in the 2024 presidential race that resulted in the end of his campaign). It appears that Mainers are up to the task and are working to implement a process that will result in a viable candidate who can put the mealymouthed, pearl-clutching "I have concerns" Susan Collins out to pasture.
I was ROFLing at that one, or would have been if my dog hadn't been asleep on my foot. The current crop of Republicans seem to have no institutional memory, or any memory at all. True, if my memories were that awful, I'd be in serious denial, or maybe I would have developed a split, Jekyll/Hyde personality.
Looks like an image from The Shining
Aside from a smattering of You Tube videos and related Substack publishing, I had never heard of Platner. It is my proximity to his state that caught my attention, being a New Englander who has traveled extensively. I thought he was the real deal, I was fooled as were many others. Now I know. His appeal as a "manly" man is not without allure to many of us who are the real deals but as I have found throughout my life in the trenches of male-dominated jobs, posturing men usually have something to hide or compensate for. Give me an FDR any day. I won't get fooled again but these days, who knows.
Good point. FDR didn't pretend anything, except his being in a wheelchair, and ended up being such a force for Main Street in spite of his background.
FDR and my grandpa went through polio at about the same time. FDR and Lincoln are what used to be what this country expected, now it's different, to say the least.
"posturing men usually have something to hide" Speaking as a woman, I can vouch for that. I can also vouch that men of that sorry sort are by far more likely to blame their insecurities on the women in the workplace.
Thank you, Liz. I noticed early on that the Pod guys seemed willing to give him a pass while the women—Alex Wagner—were always more skeptical. I remember listening to Tommy Viteor’s interview with Platner after the tattoo and it drove me crazy how he seemed to be treating him with kid gloves—I kept myself that the Pod guys aren’t journalists, but still.
Alas, political journalists act a lot like the Pod guys. Most political reporters are either well-off white guys or at the very least, have their salaries and health care benefits paid by their corporate owners, i.e. well-off white guys.
Good column. Also see Rebecca Solnit's scathing essay, "Pod Save Patriarchy (or Whatever That Sorry Platner Spectacle Was)," at https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/pod-save-patriarchy-or-whatever-that-sorry-platner-spectacle-was/.
Oh, thanks, definitely interested in that!
The Pod Save America hosts were not pro Platner. Their position was let the voters of Maine vote and decide for themselves. They were also worried about his back ground but not enough had come out at that time to be disqualifying. They were against the Democratic party picking a winner before a vote was cast in the primaries by Maine voters.
Bravo, Lisa. Great piece!!1
Platner's failings are by now well documented but please, he's a gifted speaker, tapped into anger over Collins effectively and put in hard work in Maine, appearing all over the place. It's why he became the nominee. But, yeah, better vetting, people, still feeling very burnt over Fetterman.
When I first heard of Platner and thought he was one who would beat Susan Collins, it had nothing to do with who he appeared to be. He expressed the frustration that so many people feel. Who he is and what he did were secondary. Frustrated voters are tired of the standard bearer. They want someone who will fight for them, particularly against the Epstein Class. Watching our taxpayer dollars go to a Country that has universal Healthcare and slaughters babies, makes you blind to someone's past. Secondarily his campaign promised to build an infrastructure that would stay in Maine, regardless of the outcome of his campaign. Watching all the money that was spent on the Harris Campaign ( $1 billion) and see it all leave the states and communities where the people worked, is just too hard to swallow. The Obama campaign tried to build and leave an infrastructure behind, only to watch it be destroyed by entrenched party loyalist who wanted money for consultants. People want to see that shit destroyed and they didn't care what he did when he was a drunk, a soldier or an immature prep-school brat. Shades of DJT- without military service. People are angry, Frustrated and tired. Samuel Adam's was no choir boy.
But would he really fight in the end? I agree that his words about taking on the oligarchs etc… were great. But this is a very flawed person who lied repeatedly—how could you trust that he would do what he said he was going to do?
Thank you for this article. I'm not sure why so many people thought that electing someone with no legislative experience to the Senate would be a good idea. Legislating is not easy. I also noted that when the news broke that ended Platner's campaign, too many commentators on various Substack sites leapt to blame the woman or argued that we could not expect our candidates to be saints. My thought was that we should expect and demand basic human decency. People were perhaps in the denial and anger stage of grief, having fallen in love with a candidate who was a facade created by clever political consultants who need to atone by giving whatever money they earned to the Maine Democratic party. There are other good candidates available, and those candidates can beat Susan Collins. Platner was only running at +2 in a state where there should be a massive blue wave. I look forward to seeing who the Democrats of Maine will put forward as their choice to run for Senator.
Is Platner out? Waiting until the freaking last freaking second to file the dropout notice? 50-50 chance he could go, “Oops, I didn’t file it right, shucks, I’m still on the ballot. So fuck all y’all!”
I can see it. Not saying it will happen, but I can see it.
Also—maybe we hold off on recruiting veterans w/ PTSD for a while? They have their own shit that is not straightforward just to be able to deal. We need to find *healthy* people to carry the weight of the party.
We need to take some of the responsibility for those who are sent to brutal wars and come back with PTSD.. especially wars we send soldiers to kill for us for political purposes like Iraq and Afghanistan. They deserve some slack and tolerance trying to recover from PTSD. Platner was on a ride and encouraged by notable people. His freakin' end came on very quickly and he still needs to process. We need healthy people yes in government. We have to learn how to nurture that.
Agreed. The political strategists or consultants or whoever—these candidates are their meal ticket. Platner was upended, swept along, and *needed* for his compelling presence & strong voice—which appealed to his ego and gave him a huge platform. Right away. Vetting thoroughly costs money & time, so here we are.
I was skeeved out by the tattoo right from the start. I thought it unlikely that he had no idea what it was for that many years. When I read about the social media crap—what I wondered first was what he was like before he enlisted.
Teenagers and young 20s still have developing prefrontal cortexes. So military service can be great for certain things but war is never ever ever a friend to a still-developing brain. And PTSD takes a long time to work through.
It sounded like he was working locally as a community organizer and he was good at it, notwithstanding his genuine character flaws and the dangerous and toxic behavior in his personal life. But if he’s doing good work at a local level, leave him to continue!! We are far too enamored of superstars and perceived saviors. We all have to do the work.
There should be a difference between being sad and relieved that Platner turned out to be a very wrong choice, and totally spiteful pieces like this. I'm disappointed frankly.
Oh no, won't someone think of the poor blackwater Merc with a Nazi tattoo and a history of sexual assault and rape.🙄
Well no that's absolutely not what I was thinking of. But what's the effing point in a post which is a drive-by shooting on ANYONE BUT ME BECAUSE I'M THE ONLY TRUE DEM is what I'm asking. Now please go back to the cave your comment crawled on out of?
The post isn't a drive by shooting. It's a completely justified "what the fuck were people thinking when they ignored the Nazi tattoo along with everything else?"
The people who kept stabbing him after, once again, the fucking NAZI TATTOO more than deserve to get yelled at. If the crowd hasn't decided to just throw away any kind of moral judgement because something something (fake) working class hero and he'd been ditched months ago we could have had a much better candidate lined up to try and unseat collins.
There were other progressive options, but no one cared because there was a white guy with a scruffy beard who said the right things without actually backing them up.
Yep!
Sorry Lisa. This strikes me as quite a thorough hit piece with nothing to recommend about it. A trashing.
I would have voted for Platner if I could, not punished him. Young yes, perhaps he needed to spend a few more years becoming a political animal and proving himself in the sexual realm as others in Congress have not, depending on their party and the political atmosphere. The sexual misconduct, of a few years ago which was PTSD I believe, though not excusable, is explainable. We sent him to two + brutal wars. Platner was coming to terms with it. But in 10 years it would all surface again given our politics. That he has very progressive ideas was one other very good reason to make sure he went down.