Are there any reasons to reject Graham Platner in Maine

[Jackmannii]

Joan Walsh in The Nation:

Over and over we’ve been told: We gotta support candidates, like Platner, who have a lot of guns, and pickup trucks, and tattoos, and a military background, even if it includes Blackwater; a history of racist and sexist remarks and gay slurs on social media, and a history of shady behavior toward women, because it’s the only way to reach white working-class men.

I’d say that’s pretty insulting to white working-class men.

But the lefty men who have defended Platner appall me almost more than he does. Substacker Ken Klippenstein, who once worked at The Nation , defended Platner after the sexting story broke as a manly man, unlike the “smoothgroins: real-life barbie dolls with smooth plastic where a sexual organ should be.” He named California Governor Gavin Newsom, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, and former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg (who is gay) as examples. “When Washington acts like it’s disqualifying, what they’re really saying is that ordinary people aren’t fit for higher office.” Klippenstein’s piece also contains the lovely sentence that Mills got “her clock cleaned by Platner so badly she’s probably still shitting pieces of her dentures out.” Nice violent imagery! Klippenstein captioned a side-by-side photo of Collins and Maine Governor Janet Mills, who dropped out of the race: “Susan Collins and Janet Mills would never be embroiled in a sexting scandal (too much integrity?)” Sexist, ageist—it reminds me of 2016.