The primaries in Maine are coming on Tuesday, and I think I have to dip into this thing to say something. It is not a pleasant task. We stand at a point in history where every election feels like the fate of the nation, maybe the world, rides on it - and what have I got to vote for?
Grahame fucking Platner? This is not just about him - the whole state of Maine seems, these days, to be a complete joke, politically. Everyone in the state seems to be running for governor. At least every politician’s kid in the state. At least Hannah Pingree and Angus King III - who, on the merits, don’t seem awful - though King seems to have woken up from a coma from 1990 or something. He doesn’t want to fight! Well, bully for you Angus 3, bully for you. Now honestly, any of them might be all right, but there is nothing to get excited about among them. Meanwhile, the Republicans are reliably ridiculous - did you know that Bobby Charles is part of the woke left? I would never have guessed. I am not sure I want to trust the nuts who say so.
But that’s all a sideshow. There is a senate seat at stake, and the whole senate at stake, and in a non-trivial way, the fate of the Union. What are our choices? The Republicans offer Susan Collins again, rising from her jewel lined coffin with a look of deep concern on her face to go with her reliable Republican votes. And the Democrats? started out with Janet Mills - a reasonable respectable governor, who is just about as old as Collins, disliked by more or less everyone, and loathed by the right. She was joined in this race by Graham Platner - youngish, veteran, working man (at least someone who had done a days work in his life), preaching the Bernie gospel. He was an intriguing, even inspiring option - then we started to get to know him.
He comes with more baggage than Samsonite. A Totenkopf on his chest; stint with Blackwater, the mercenaries; years of being an idiot online. And now, as primary day approaches, revelations about sexting with women after his marriage, and allegations of mistreatment of women. Collins' surrogates have been making a meal of these things - though it's hard to see what they object to - since when is having white supremist tattoos and badmouthing and mistreating women, homophobia, racism etc detriments in the Republican Party? Their hit pieces sound like their own ads! But he has given them plenty of fodder and the bullshit keeps coming.
He is the presumptive nominee at this point - Mills dropped out months ago, no one else has joined the race - he's going to win the primary. And I am not going to waver from my conviction that in a general election, one votes for the party over the candidate - another D in the senate is worth swallowing a lot of shit. Taking the senate is worth almost any amount of shit. Is there any point that changes? Probably - when the allegations about abuse become credible, more credible - there's a limit to what you can write off as I was suffering from the war. I don't think we have reached that point - not for me, anyway - it might come. What I worry about most is that at this point, can he win at all? Are the allegations and past misdeeds done? there are 5 more months before the election - is there more bullshit to come? I can't imagine they have really thrown everything they have at him. Or that this is all he has done. This is going to keep coming. Maybe some of it will continue to be ambiguous, or old enough to say, he has changed, he really has, or any of the other mitigations offered. Maybe. But would I bet that way?
And it is not even, ultimately, about what I can swallow (and voters like me who would not vote for Susan Collins with gun to our heads.) It's about how much of this is going to chase off anyone wavering, anyone sick of Collins and Trump, but not quite willing to vote for a total asshole. The longer this goes, the more it benefits Susan Collins. And by this point - I don't know if there is any alternative. If the worst is true - could he drop out? he could, but to what end? Who will replace him? why would they have a better chance against Collins than he would?
This is so fucking depressing. We need this seat. And this fuckhead is going to lose it for us.
Though even more depressing - if he weren’t in the race, we’d be stuck with Mills, and she could lose it for us. She’d maintain something like dignity doing it, but she was never going to beat Collins. Could anyone have beaten Collins? I mean - yes! Platner, if he were what he says he is, yes - an actual decent version of Graham Platner? Yes - he could win. But that's not what we have - we have a guy with a Totenkopf, a guy who's been trashing women, blacks, gays online for decades, a guy who kinda cheated on his wife and might have treated other women badly. A guy whose defense is saying that he's changed - but why would we believe him?
It is galling. It is galling listening to people I wish knew better defend him, pretend to claim he is "authentic" or some shit like that. He is a completely transparent opportunist - out for himself, at the expense of anyone. Even that of course is better than Susan Collins - and if he voted what he says, he'd be well worth it. But I am about as confident of his unwavering support for Democratic politics as I am that there will be no more shocking revelations about his behavior. There is nothing there with this guy but the kind of borrowed credibility ge gets from people like Sanders and Warren and their ilk.
It is a depressing time and place to be.
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