Let’s start simply by listing some of what’s made Graham Platner one of the most stomach-turning political candidates in memory. Democrats seem set to choose the Maine “oyster farmer” and former Marine to try ousting five-term Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in November’s midterm elections.This is far from a complete list of Platner’s depravities, and Democrats reasonably fear there could be more. Any one of them would in an earlier epoch have disqualified Platner for office. A politician who was revealed to have behaved as he has done would have skulked away from the public eye and hidden his face in shame. The fact that Platner for the moment shows no sign of regarding his disgrace as sufficient reason for withdrawing from the Senate race says much about the condition of our culture and politics, about the cynicism of the parties, and about the personal shamelessness of the candidate himself.
Some aspects of this affair reflect particularly on the Democrats, but certainly Platner’s vulgarity, boorishness, fecklessness, and defiant rejection of decent norms do not. As Jessica Tarlov, a Democratic Fox News contributor, noted this week, members of her party can hardly be blamed for rejecting lectures from Republicans, who have embraced President Donald Trump and who more recently gave the odious Ken Paxton a thumping victory over the decent and respectable Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in the Texas primary.
