Most of us who won’t be voting in the Democrat primary next year noticed something interesting this week: within 24 hours of Janet Mills announcing for her party’s nomination to challenge incumbent Senator Susan Collins, a flood of previously-scrubbed posts by progressive candidate Graham Platner hit the news — thanks, no less, to CNN.
When asked at a brewery in Freeport on Thursday about Platner’s past musings about why black people don’t tip, why rural white folk are stupid and racist, or why rape victims shouldn’t make themselves vulnerable, Mills feigned ignorance. Pour me another.
Hate to be that guy who says ‘I told you so,’ but in a column on Tuesday I actually did predict something like this would happen. Why? Because in Big Democrat politics, the house always wins. Ask Bernie Sanders how long it took for his knee caps to heal after he challenged house favorite Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Platner’s Reddit-gate moment reminded me of something from nineteen years ago, when an Iraq war veteran in Ohio named Paul Hackett tried to challenge Democrat house favorite Sherrod Brown for the party’ nomination to run for a U.S. Senate seat there.
Shortly after Hackett announced, then Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid called him to his office to ask about some photographs that mysteriously appeared suggesting the young upstart had been guilty of war crime in Iraq.
Guess who the head of the Democratic National Senatorial Committee was back then? If you guessed Chuck Schumer, you’re right.
Sorry kid, you can imagine the sleazy New York senator saying, I like you and all, you probably have a bright future ahead of you, it’s just Sherrod’s turn.
Spoiler alert: Hackett committed no war crimes, it was all photo-shopped.
Sure, Graham Platner said some dumb stuff on social media when he got back from Afghanistan and was tending bar in Washington, DC. Maybe he was pissed his tip jar was so empty, maybe he was trying to get in the pants of some liberal chick, maybe he felt some residual guilt about what happened to a girl who’d had too many after she left his bar. None of it is super defensible, but I’d also argue none of it matter that much either.
If there is one thing Donald Trump did for America it’s this: he freed us of the perfectly-coifed, never say anything offensive, Chamber of Commerce-approved politicians. Thank God. I always hated them anyway.
Today we live in a new political era. We elect people not because we want to be like them, wish they’d date our daughters or because they “share our values,” but rather because of what we think they might accomplish for us. Frankly, this is a more intelligent way to make political choices.
If there’s one thing Janet Mills, Chuck Schumer and Genevieve MacDonald — who until Friday had been Platner’s political director but quit because she was allegedly so offended by his old posts — have in common, it’s this: none of them have ever served in combat. They’re all the sort of people who prefer safe choices. Both Augusta and Washington, DC are filled with such walking disappointments.
Now to Genevieve’s credit, if I had to come up with a winning general election strategy for Platner in Maine after he’s called all white rural people stupid and racist, I suppose I would feel a little overwhelmed too. But at the end of the day, nothing’s impossible.
There’s been a battle going on for the heart and soul of the Democrat party for some time now, between the wild-eyed lefties and the Establishment-types who doctor photos, leak documents and make up far fetched stories for their scribes in the mainstream media to regurgitate without question. Maybe it’s because I like underdogs, but the wild-eyed types at least believe in something even if I don’t necessarily agree with what that something is.
Did the house win this week by releasing some dumb social media posts? Look at it this way: in Virginia, Democrat attorney general candidate Jay Jones, who’d talked about shooting a political rival and pissing on his grave, is still in the race. Across America, people are tired of pretty-talking politicians. The only thing that Chuck and Janet really exposed is how they do business.
But we already knew that.
