PEterEGraham Platner gives Fetterman 2.0 vibes: progressive in the streets, MAGA in the sheets
Jason BeetsPlatner:
We need to know why military force is used right off the bat.
And it needs to be approved by Congress right off the bat.
The Constitution is clear about who is supposed to have the power of waging war in this country.
It is the body that is most representative of the American people, because it is the American people who have to bear the brunt of combat.
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mayaGraham Platner is going to Fetterman so fast and these "leftists" cannot stop themselves from boosting a Blackwater mercenary with nazi tattoos. Even Fetterman didn't look *that bad* on paper before he pivoted lmfao
Chuck Darwin#Maine, June 9: The establishment vs. the insurgency
Maine is one of the nation’s most closely watched primaries,
and for good reason.
It’s one of the four most competitive Senate races in the country,
and it represents what is believed to be the Democrats’ best chance to pick up a seat.
But it also puts the party in a deeply uncomfortable situation.
The Democratic primary pits
78-year-old Gov. Janet #Mills, handpicked by the party establishment,
against insurgent Graham #Platner, 41,
a charismatic oyster farmer and military veteran.
Both are seeking to unseat Sen. Susan Collins (R),
who is running for her sixth term and has garnered a reputation as one of the few Republicans to occasionally stand up to Trump.
Early polls indicated Platner held a sizable lead over Mills
despite past Reddit posts that downplayed sexual assault in the military
and a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol that Platner said he had changed late last year.
But the race has forced Democrats to weigh their now-familiar qualms about the age of so many of their leaders,
and balance the reliability of tried-and-tested candidates
— Mills has twice won statewide
— against taking a chance on appealing newcomers.
In some ways, the primary has become a test of Democrats’ tolerance for risk
in a year when they are desperate for the political winds to blow them back into power.
Only one thing looks certain:
If their pick in June fails to defeat Collins in November,
the missed opportunity will haunt them for a long time to come.
-- Karen Tumulty
--Dan Merica
--Yasmeen Abutaleb
Graham Platner pulls no punches in his criticisms of ICE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv5h7zUBwrA
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Graham Platner Speaks At Anti-ICE Rally in Lewiston
In 2024, nearly 6 in 10 registered Democrats in Maine lived south of the state capital Augusta.
That part of the state would not constitute an urban metropolis anywhere else in the U.S.,
but it is a drastically different world than the one #Platner is fighting for.
The party’s gravitational center sits in Cumberland and York counties:
Greater Portland and the southern coastal strip.
That electorate is more educated, affluent and urban
than the state as a whole,
clustered in Portland’s walkable neighborhoods,
college towns such as Brunswick
and artsy coastal communities that swell with summer tourists.
Southern Maine
– closer in feel to Boston’s suburbs than to the paper mills and potato fields up north
– is where Democrats are already strong.
#Collins’ vulnerability lies instead among independents in small cities and towns,
in deindustrialized and rural counties drifting rightward for two decades.
The 2020 U.S. Senate race
– one that nearly every analyst, myself included, thought Collins was doomed to lose to Democrat Sara Gideon
– makes that reality clear.
💥Collins outperformed Donald Trump in every county.
She built commanding margins in rural Maine,
offsetting Democratic gains in Portland and the southern coast.
🔥Her real breakthrough came in the kinds of small towns where Trump lost and she won or closed the margin:
Ellsworth, Brewer, Machias, Gardiner and Winterport.
Those former mill towns and service hubs once anchored the Maine Democratic Party.
They’re home to exactly the kinds of voters who,
in principle,
might give someone like Platner a hearing:
not deeply ideological,
modestly skeptical of both parties
and wary of national polarization.
❌ But they are also the voters least represented in the Democratic primary electorate or the donor class fueling Platner’s campaign.
Every few years, Democrats try to convince themselves they’ve found the one
– a candidate who can finally speak fluent rural,
who looks and sounds like the voters they’ve lost.
In 2024, that hope was pinned on #Tim #Walz, the flannel-wearing, “Midwestern nice” governor whose small-town roots were supposed to unlock the rural Midwest for a Harris–Walz victory.
It did not.
Now those expectations have migrated to New England, onto #Graham #Platner
– the tattooed veteran and oyster farmer from Maine
who swears from the stump,
wears sweatshirts instead of suits,
and,
some believe,
could be the party’s blue-collar savior against Sen. #Susan #Collins, the Republican incumbent running her sixth campaign for U.S. Senate.
I study rural politics and live in rural Maine.
I’m skeptical whether Platner can reach the independents and rural moderates Democrats need.
But I also see why people think he might: He’s speaking to grievances that are real, measurable and decades in the making.
Platner represents Democrats’ anxieties about class and geography
– a projection of the authenticity they hope might reconcile their national brand with rural America.
On paper, he’s the kind of figure they imagine can bridge the divide: a plainspoken Mainer.
But his story cuts both ways.
He’s the grandson of a celebrated Manhattan architect,
his father is a lawyer and his mother is a restaurateur whose business caters to summer tourists.
He attended the elite Hotchkiss School.
⭐️It’s a life of silver spoons and salt air.
-- That tension mirrors the Democratic party itself -- led and funded by urban professionals who are increasingly aware of just how far they strayed from their working-class roots.
If Platner is to prevail, he must assemble a coalition that expands beyond what the party has become
– concentrated in urban and coastal enclaves, financed nationally and culturally distant from much of rural America.
Yet Platner’s immediate hurdle isn’t rural Maine at all.
It is the Democratic primary, and those voters do not live where his campaign imagery is set
https://theconversation.com/why-rural-maine-may-back-democrat-graham-platners-populism-in-the-senate-campaign-but-not-his-party-269466
Why rural Maine may back Democrat Graham Platner’s populism in the Senate campaign − but not his party
Whether Maine’s Graham Platner wins or loses, his campaign to knock off longtime GOP Sen. Susan Collins already points to a deeper question: Can Democrats do more than rent rural authenticity?
Maggie MaybeThis is such a great video. I hope people who vote in Maine watch it.
Graham Platner is an Embarrassing Liar
WorldTravelerAll7good article on Maine politics
i hope this capitulation by the Corpor8 Dems affirms that Platner is the only choice if Maine wants someone to fight fascism
just knowing Schumer recruited Gov Mills is disqualifying at this point
Schumer is servile to Repugs
(& the tattoo stuff is bs. if i picked a skull off the wall at a tattoo parlor, there is no way in hell i would know which skulls have meaning besides "skull")
PhilipTheBucket