The Maine Wire
  • News
  • Commentary
  • The Blog
  • About
  • Support the Maine Wire
  • Store
Facebook Twitter Instagram
Trending News
  • Collins, Mills, Lewiston and Auburn Mayors Mark Grand Opening of New Maine MILL Museum in Lewiston
  • Collins Says Federal Help Is Ready for Lewiston as City Confronts Youth Gun Violence Crisis
  • Angry Ole Chellie Has A New Gambit – Regularly Posting Whiny Videos From The North Haven Ferry
  • Maine Couple Caught Up In Ogunquit Zoning Fight Over Rooster Lawn Ornaments
  • Westbrook Man Arrested for Attempted Arson at Portland Restaurant with Molotov Cocktail
  • SCOTUS Allows Federal Gov’t to Turn Away Aliens Seeking Asylum Before They Cross the Border
  • Editorial: Stop the Gaslighting. The People Who Broke It Want Another Chance.
  • Collins’ Defamation Claim Against Platner A Tough Sell, And Why Is She Taking Him Seriously To Begin With?
Facebook Twitter Instagram
The Maine Wire
Sunday, June 28
  • News
  • Commentary
  • The Blog
  • About
  • Support the Maine Wire
  • Store
The Maine Wire
Home » News » News » Graham Platner Wasn’t The First Choice When Democrat Socialists Of America Went Searching For A Collins Opponent
News

Graham Platner Wasn’t The First Choice When Democrat Socialists Of America Went Searching For A Collins Opponent

Ted CohenBy Ted CohenJune 8, 2026Updated:June 8, 202610 Comments3 Mins Read3K Views
Facebook Twitter Email LinkedIn Reddit
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email

A pair of socialist candidate recruiters had their eyes on an alternative to Graham Platner when they began looking for a good suspect to run against five-term U.S. GOP Sen. Susan Collins.

Yale Law School grad Daniel Moraff and his fiancé, Leanne Fan, an academic with stints at Harvard and the proudly radical University of California-Berkeley, first sought out a union leader at Bath Iron Works.

That’s according to a new report in the New York Post.

The pair had originally met while working for Bernie Sanders in 2020 and are hardcore members of the Democrat Socialists of America.

When Moraff and Fan came to Maine last summer on a recruiting trip they considered the union organizer but dropped him at the last minute due to “a skeleton in the closet,” according to Politico.

(Must’ve been a pretty big skeleton to trump the many since found in Platner’s closet.)

The pair had first gotten wind of Platner through the local Democrat socialist network, where he had been active.

He had been featured in a recent New York Times travel story about oysters in Maine.

They sent to Platner’s mother’s restaurant near Sullivan , Maine, where he lives, and interviewed him.

“After talking with him, they felt they had their candidate,” according to Post reporter Chadwick Moore.

They “groomed rich kid Graham Platner into a ‘working-class’ candidate,” the headline on Moore’s story says.

After scandals started to compound, including revelations Platner made Reddit posts which downplayed sexual assault, defended U.S. soldiers desecrating Taliban corpses and alluded to familiarity with prostitutes, Moraff and Fan weren’t discouraged.

In fact they were energized.

In Platner they saw the imperfect – just what they wanted to appeal to average working stiffs.

“The more scandals that engulf Platner and the more centrist outrage he can stoke, the better, as it gets more stories written and drowns out his opponent in November,” Moore writes.

The subliminal magic of creating the “personal personna” of a bad-boy underdog ensures that Platner will survive, according to New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie.

As it turns out, transforming a rich kid who went to boarding school and whose lawyer daddy helped him buy his first house into an average, everyday American who degrades women, cops, rural Mainers and has a Nazi tattoo is the socialists’ idea of a menu promising political success.

Steve Robinson, editor-in-chief of The Maine Wire, told Fox News that Platner the self-described “oyster man” says all that needs to be said about the Sullivan native.

“There are oyster farms and oyster farmers but there’s no such thing as an ‘oyster man,'” Robinson, a Maine native, told Fox’s Laura Ingraham. “The whole thing is a campaign prop.”

Robinson said Platner created the oyster gimmick only after he started the website for a Senate campaign.

Ironically, Moore sees the fake oyster farm as an example of the consultants intentionally drowning out substantive political-policy discussions Collins will attempt as the general election nears in November.

Art
Previous ArticleMiddle East Conflict Escalates as Israel-Iran Fighting Threatens Fragile Ceasefire
Next Article Fired CBS Drama Queen Scott Pelley Who Never Served In Military Falsely Claims He’s “Gone To Combat”
Ted Cohen

[email protected]

Latest News

Collins, Mills, Lewiston and Auburn Mayors Mark Grand Opening of New Maine MILL Museum in Lewiston

June 28, 2026

Collins Says Federal Help Is Ready for Lewiston as City Confronts Youth Gun Violence Crisis

June 28, 2026

Angry Ole Chellie Has A New Gambit – Regularly Posting Whiny Videos From The North Haven Ferry

June 28, 2026
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Login
Notify of
guest

guest

10 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Louisewoods
Louisewoods
20 days ago

The interviewers read him a line of script written by some social anarchist action hate group from California .
Graham Platner was able to recite it back to them word for word without pause .
The interviewers looked at each other and said ….” He’s OUR Boy . “
“ We will call him Oyster Man ! “ …….they exclaimed .
And so Maine’s and the Country’s future became threatened .

18
Of the North
Of the North
20 days ago

I have a question for the secretary of state shanty blowhard (momo). Will you be allowing residents to cast ballots for Collins? Because if not it’ll save me a lot of time. Because, you know democracy or whatever.. 

12
Bill
Bill
20 days ago

I don’t see much difference between Democrat Socialist, and National Socialist. Both strive for complete control over the population, and both believe in eugenics.

12
Buster Givens
Buster Givens
19 days ago

People are really this stupid to think that this “Porta-Potty-Perv-Platner” is someone they want to represent them? The guy is a mismanaged slob and a mama’s boy.

6
Laura
Laura
19 days ago

Talk about a pissing contest. I don’t like some things about Collins but she has a proven track record of hard work. Platner’s a porta perv with trust funds and a fake job while gaming the system. It’s a contest of sensationalizing crap that should be severely punished

6
malcha
malcha
19 days ago

Keep this perverted antisemitic womenizing lunatic away from anthing other than dead oysters.

5
mainer
mainer
19 days ago

Democrats live in bizarro world.

2
Suzannah
Suzannah
19 days ago

Platner is disgusting. Collins has my vote.

5
Mike
Mike
19 days ago

The fact that Platner has so many followers says more about what our state has become than it does about him……how can so many (other wise educated) people be so clueless??!

6
James Gordon
James Gordon
19 days ago

Their first choice was probably a direct descendant to Hitler, but the next choice was (S)Platner.

1
Recent News

Collins, Mills, Lewiston and Auburn Mayors Mark Grand Opening of New Maine MILL Museum in Lewiston

June 28, 2026

Collins Says Federal Help Is Ready for Lewiston as City Confronts Youth Gun Violence Crisis

June 28, 2026

Maine Couple Caught Up In Ogunquit Zoning Fight Over Rooster Lawn Ornaments

June 28, 2026

Westbrook Man Arrested for Attempted Arson at Portland Restaurant with Molotov Cocktail

June 27, 2026

SCOTUS Allows Federal Gov’t to Turn Away Aliens Seeking Asylum Before They Cross the Border

June 27, 2026
Newsletter

News

  • News
  • Campaigns & Elections
  • Opinion & Commentary
  • Media Watch
  • Education
  • Media

Maine Wire

  • About the Maine Wire
  • Advertising
  • Contact Us
  • Submit Commentary
  • Complaints
  • Maine Policy Institute

Resources

  • Maine Legislature
  • Legislation Finder
  • Get the Newsletter
  • Maine Wire TV

Facebook Twitter Instagram Steam RSS
  • Post Office Box 7829, Portland, Maine 04112

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

wpDiscuz