Democrats learn all the wrong lessons.
TL;DR
Graham Platner’s candidacy is the latest example of the weakness in Democratic recruiting and candidate cultivation.
Regardless of how accomplished they may have been in the past, Democratic voters are done with candidates who remember seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan.
Pro-Nazi sympathies and serial sexual misdeeds should be disqualifiers for candidates and also invitations to the family Thanksgiving dinner.
Saying “I was going through a rough patch” is not the same as taking responsibility for your actions.
Like a growing number of Democratic political professionals, I’ve been commenting lately on how the old model of campaigning is on life support — kept alive by a dwindling number of highly-paid consultants milking the beast for every last drop even as the Republic falters.
A key part of this diagnosis is the fact that too many Democrats are over-coached in 1990s media training techniques and use words that I swear they stole from my Master’s Thesis.
So I’m all for candidates who are not lawyers or policy wonks, who went to community college and have a normal job where their boss is a jerk.
Authenticity, ya know.
Which brings me to the case of Graham Platner, Democratic U.S. Senate nominee from the great state of Maine and Third Reich fanboy.
The best thing I can say about Platner is that his candidacy shows that Democrats are open to learning from our opponents, who do this campaigning thing pretty well these days.
But we learned the wrong lesson.
Instead of a normal person who comes at the issues from a sense of curiosity and humanity, we have advanced to the General Election the Democrats’ very own Nazi-loving adulterer.
Hmmm. Reminds me of somebody.
And give me a break with all the excuses and explanations. They all boil down to, “I have never consumed a movie, TV show, book, or cartoon about World War II in all my 41 years on this planet.”
Add in the multiple texting with women not his wife and his threatening behavior from previous relationships and we have our own little Junior Trump.
Like I said, learning the wrong lesson.
To make matters a whole lot worse, we tried to solve the Platner Problem with exactly the wrong candidate at the wrong time.
Now, I’m sure Janet Mills had an outstanding record as Governor but I think we can all agree that a 78-year-old professional politician probably doesn’t hit the mark of what most voters are looking for right now.
But that’s the extraction team sent by party bigwigs to bail out our side from a guy who zealously sexts random women and went around cosplaying as a concentration camp killer for 18 years.
IS THIS REALLY THE BEST WE CAN DO???
If so, then I think we may be cooked.
Oh sure, Trump’s self-imposed fuckery has things looking pretty good for Democrats this November but we have another Presidential election coming up soon and we won’t have old Donnie to kick around anymore.
But for now, in this corner, we have the guy you’d tell your daughter to break up with the minute he took off his shirt at Family Beach Day.
And in this corner, a career pol just a few years shy of octogenarian status.
No wonder voters are fed up with us.
If there is someone in DC who can explain this to me, please message me.
If not, then is there someone in DC with the guts to do a Scott Pelley and speak your mind next time somebody brings up the next preposterous idea? (Yeah, he lost his job but I have a hunch he’ll be just fine and so will you.)
And please, please, please build a pipeline of “authentic” candidates who don’t think Nuremberg should have been declared a mistrial.
At least Platner gives Democrats an economic accomplishment to talk about. His candidacy has likely brought more business to Nazi memorabilia dealers across the good old USA in the last few months than all the Richard Spencers of the world have done in the past few decades.
Fellas, you’re welcome.