Yup. We need some politicians promising to actually, you know, help voters.
I assumed that it was clear from context since I was talking about primary candidates and only one party had a contested primary.
Sigh, Platner has the political instincts of a pile of dog shit. Do I think the self-proclaimed WWII nut who was too stupid to cover a Nazi tattoo will continue to do utterly dumb things? Of course, he will.
Apparently, he met his wife and married her in 2023. The sexting was in 2024-2025 and included at least 6 different women. I am glad I am not in Maine as I wouldn’t want to be forced to choose who to vote for.
This is pretty gross. It appears these texts were leaked by his former campaign manager, who his wife had told about them in confidence. So she broke her confidence in order to smear the presumptive Democratic candidate.
I have to wonder how the tone of this conversation would be different if it was the scandal-plagued moderate who had won the primary and the Bernie-endorsed progressive candidate whose supporters were keeping up a steady flow of mud-flinging even now that only the GOP can benefit from it.
This doesn’t even count as a scandal. Who cares about sex texts between consenting adults?
If he’s married, the texts do speak to his (lack of) character.
For a Senator? Against a Republican? Who gives a fuck?
Voters who have had a cheating spouse.
Since Trump, I don’t think consenting adult sex scandals are a thing anymore.
I mean, the title of the thread is “Are there any reasons to reject Graham Platner in Maine”.
So, addressing the “any” above, it seems we have plenty.
I think we’re getting tied up in different things.
First, would we prefer Platner to Mills, if we were Maine voters? I honestly don’t know. Given the reporting, I think that he’s much more careless in most social respects than I am comfortable with in the post-Trump world. The reported “WW2 buff” that doesn’t know a totenkopf, the choices of platforms for getting his name out, the reported sexting. NOTE - I avoided assigning motive, thus my choice of the word careless, but no, it doesn’t endear me to him. Still, I agree that he seems a lot more likely to get out the vote than Mills, and I’m not at the point where I think Platner is a plant.
Second, will he do damage to Democrats as a whole by playing into the both-siderism tactic beloved of MAGA? See, here is the thing, I think it quite possible. And we may end up with (to borrow a charged example which has other thread) a number of local and national voters NOT showing up at all to support him or other candidates because “they’re both just as bad” which we got on Israel/Palestine issues in the last major election.
Seriously, I’m more worried about the effects of this result more than the first, BUT hopefully the prior example which gave us Trump 2.0 may mitigate the loss, and MAGA was going to do MAGA no matter what. Those people don’t care about nuance, detail, or even facts in the first place. But it’s still the major concern for me, myself, and I.
So, yeah, realpolitik.
As for the sexting stuff, yeah, I disapprove, but if it’s between consenting adults with no power imbalance (BIG conditional) it wouldn’t matter to me if it happened and his wife was willing to accept it. And most of the pearl-clutching happens on the other side of the political isle. But I wouldn’t compare the general publics response to Trump’s sex scandals to that of anyone else. For whatever reason (we’ve postulated many) Trump seems to have his own set of rules when it comes to approval from his supporters, and I could seen plenty of voters with semi-cheating spouses getting really put off.
Oh no, candidate-campaign-manager confidentiality has been breached! That’s against A Rule We Made Up! Let’s appeal to some imaginary referee who will force Republicans to stop taking advantage of this bad thing about the Democratic candidate and keep complaining about how unfair it is, that will definitely work this time despite its track record over the last decade. Bonus: The candidate whose full-time job seems to be calling people slurs and profanities on Reddit and bragging about how much he loves killing people is just shocked by the lack of decorum here, and will continue to complain about the civility violations once he’s done jerking off in the port-a-potty.
The real question might be: Why did a lifelong Democrat who had total access to all the information about Graham Platner run away from him screaming and devote all her energy to keeping him out of office? What else does Genevieve McDonald know about what Platner has done and how Republicans are going to use it to bury the entire party that continues to back him?
I have to wonder how the tone of this conversation would be different if it was the scandal-plagued moderate who had won the primary and the Bernie-endorsed progressive candidate whose supporters were keeping up a steady flow of mud-flinging even now that only the GOP can benefit from it.
No one with Platner’s track record could ever have been nominated without the “we need to appeal to the average Maine voter, so let’s find an ignorant, racist dumbass doing disability fraud, that should delight those fucking hicks” strategy. Within Democratic Party factions, the idea of conceptualizing your campaign’s audience like that and actually following through with it could only come from the progressive left.
For me, it’s only okay if the wife was willing to accept it before it happened. Secretly sexting other people is something that has a very large chance of hurting the other spouse. He kept it secret because he must have known she wouldn’t have approved. I’m sure he didn’t intend to hurt her, but that doesn’t make it alright. I’d guess her “forgiveness” was made with a lot of emotional conflict considering she might have to end a marriage that she was hoping would have kids. It shows a lack of concern for her feelings that he created a situation that put her in that position. It demonstrates a core moral failing in his personality. That doesn’t mean that people shouldn’t vote for him. It sucks that the voters have to pick between a human shaped pile of vomit and a human shaped pile of crap, but here we are.
Democrats wanted someone the GOP couldn’t smear as being a “soy-boy.” So they got someone who’s a man-boy.
Graham does whatever Graham wants! Graham doesn’t bother with other people’s feelings! Graham doesn’t care about ‘good judgment’!!!
This is not someone we want to be President. We already know what people like that will do with unlimited power.
But this isn’t an election for President. Platner would be, if elected, one of 100 Senators. The damage he could do with his ME ME ME attitude is limited by that reality.
If I were a Maine voter I would hold my nose and vote for the man-boy—solely because that could be part of what must happen for Dems to regain the Senate.
“ME ME ME” not being, in this particular case, a reference to Maine.
Republicans haven’t even ramped up their full opposition campaign yet. What we’re seeing now is likely just the baseline—serious oppo research and messaging usually consolidates after the primary and really intensifies in the final 1–2 months before the general. If these issues are already on the table now, it’s hard to believe that more isn’t coming.
Sigh, I get it is probably too late to switch to someone else. I am just frustrated that this is the best the Democratic party has to offer in what should have been our easiest seat to win.
I’m shocked this is a bigger deal than the damn instantly disqualifying nazi tattoo.
It often seems like the more a candidate campaigns from the extremes—left or right—the more their supporters feel like the stakes are existential, and the more willing they are to overlook flaws that would otherwise be disqualifying.
I don’t think it is. I think it’s just bored journalists.
Yeah, should have said “being treated as a bigger deal”. I don’t see the big deal at all, whatever works I guess.
Yes, this is a nothingburger.
Looking at other women or flirting even is not cheating.