So Plantner finally bows to the inevitable and withdraws , giving the Democrats all of four days to find a suitable replacement to contest a Senate seat that was there for the taking.
They can’t say they weren’t warned ; Jonathan Martin wrote this prescient piece nine months ago.
I think it’s a confused piece. He appears to be making about 8 different arguments, some of which he cannot even recognize are distinct, and some of which are the complete opposite of his seemingly core criticism about Dems (who precisely does he mean by this?) falling in love leading them to support bad candidates.
Analyses of how something like the Planter situation occurred have to center on what options the voters are given by who puts themselves out there to run. What happened in Maine is that everyone who might have been a credible alternative preferred to go for the Governor’s race. That was partially because its viewed as easier to win an open seat (Mills is termed out) than beat Collins. But was also because Schumer and DSCC made clear that Mills was their candidate. She is a two term governor who is decently popular in the state but is 78 years old for FFS. Even before getting into issues of the Maine economy not doing great, she was a terrible candidate to boost. And worse, she didnt even want to run and was clearly pressurized by Schumer into doing so. She campaigned like it and simply never got going meaning it was clear from very early on Platner was going to win the primary. He presented a compelling story, but his main attribute was that he filled a void, and did it enthusiastically giving a reason for primary voters to support him. This was not a snake charmer beating out a bunch of credible candidates, it was a case of literally only one person asking voters for their vote (technically there were other people in the race, but all relative non entities from the start).
It is to me a complete misreading of the situation from Martin to try to put this in the same category as what happened with Fetterman (a terrible candidate beating a credible but boring normie Dem) or McGrath (national Dems putting a ton of money behind a campaign they convinced themselves could win despite polls showing the race was never winnable). These are three completely different circumstances, and only the Fetterman one is consistent with what appears to be Martin’s main argument about Dems making bad decisions because they fall in love with people who turn out to be bad candidates.
I think a lot of it is similar to the Biden shit show 2 years ago. You cannot criticize Dems for lining up behind Biden despite knowing he should not be running when no one else volunteered themselves up as an alternative. A bad Biden was far preferable to any version of Trump and until someone else threw their hat in the ring there was no other option but to support him
He wrote that ten months ago. If he could see it then , and just about everybody else , that this dude was an absolute car crash waiting to happen , then why on earth has it taken 'til now for him to be disavowed ? As far as I can see this is almost on a par with Biden handing Trump his second term. The organisation as a whole is fucking useless.
Didnt I already answer that? You need other people in the race for people to have other options to support. JMart has identified Platner as being a bad candidate, but then makes some incredibly confused argument about how this is what Dems do and then conflates multiple different issues, many of which not only have nothing to do with the circumstances of the race, but run 180 degrees from the circumstances of it.
He was the only credible person in a critical race and people gave him grace him to excuse his red flags, but only for as long as the excuses were credible (and I think they absolutely were at the time JMart wrote this piece) and were related to criticisms that were excusable (rape is very different than being a shithead online).
I don’t understand how he was ever considered credible and the fact that it has taken til now is shocking.
I think our replies were misaligned , or something. I didn’t see the Biden bit before answering.
From very early on he was miles ahead in the polls. That preceded the national support. No one else was really doing anything to ask voters for their votes and so there wasnt really anyone for anyone else to throw support behind, other than Mills. But the expectation for people to do that is the other 50% of the piece about Dems being shit that Martin wrote (DC establishment being incredibly disconnected from what the voters are telling them and completely misunderstanding what constitutes a good candidate to throw their weight behind) even though he doesnt seem to appreciate that about his own argument.
As for never being credible I can understand people thinking from the time this piece was written that he was a bad candidate and didn’t deserve support (albeit easier to say as a dispassionate journalist than a party operative with an imperative to pick up seats for whom pragmatism is more important than idealism). However there is such a big difference between the current situation and what the debate was about his suitability back then that I think the “I told you so” so many establishment types are doing is way off. It’s understandable that people most skeptical of his early red flags and those who didnt buy his explanations might say they knew there were more skeletons to be revealed that would ultimately doom him, but that is a million miles from suggesting we should have known it would get here, to rape, from where it started
I saw a clip somewhere , presumably from the beginning of his candidacy , where his campaign managers (some young progressive types who didn’t come across as particularly bright ) were being questioned about the rigour of the vetting process they had overseen before putting him forward and they were almost blasé when presented with some clear and obvious danger signs that were flagged up , embarrassing stuff really.
What do you make of the actual rape allegation ? Not that it makes any difference now but I did find it odd that it took this long for the killer blow to land , and can’t help thinking it might be the usual Republican shithousery at work.
I don’t see there is any reason to doubt it. The previous round of reporting of his treatment of women from NYT was weak, but there was two ways of reading it. One was the purist of a GOP fed story that didn’t surface much and so they published what they could. The other was they had the rape story but not enough on the record confirmation to publish it so pushed what they had fully expecting the other shoe to drop. It is understandable these women dont want to put their name on this and make a personal trauma a national story. But the woman who came forward to Poltico seems pretty unimpeachable.
I think it totally understandable how some people could disavow him now despite having accepted his explanations for prior controversies.
I know the clip you’re talking about and it’s embarrassing. They come across as woefully naive but I suspect it is more a case of having consultant brain and acting like they are smart enough to convince people, the rubes, of anything they want to.
Platner is undoubtedly good at speaking to the issues of the day. I understand why people looking for a “populist” candidate to promote would have been attracted to him. These people though made two mistakes think. One in the lack of vetting (if you even believe that is true) that saw them pick him as the candidate they wanted to convince to run. But the other was as his consultant trying to pretend that his populist message was the result of a working class background. We now know that is not true and it was character they created for him. The irony of that is with Mamdani and even Pritzker we know that candidates can authentically advocate for traditional left wing even socialist positions even if they came up in some degree of privilage. They didnt need to pretend he was working class, and while I think he would have got through the race of that was the only issue the fact the consultants who created him as a candidate were that immune and disregarding of reality is probably a really good indicator of how they landed on such a troubled candidate
I am borderline spamming the chat now 
so I’ll back away after this, but I think this is a good piece on the lefty consultant class being too removed from the working class they are looking to speak for to know what working class authenticity is.
Platner had nothing on which to hang his promises of political efficacy but a collection of articulated progressive beliefs. Well, that and a series of signifiers fetishized by white-collar consultants like Moraff who think they know what working-class voters want: forearm tattoos, earrings, a cruddy trucker hat, a facility with raw shellfish, a litany of offensive Reddit posts, and a history of drinking too much.
Yep, the Dems need to get their act together. The Republicans are a disgrace, on any number of levels, and significant gains are possible.
But without credible Democrat candidates, good messaging, and better organization, the Republicans will be handed ‘permission’ to keep doing what they are doing. Ugh.
To be honest, I think the easiest way to get their act together would be to stop trying. Platner probably would not have had the run to the nomination he had if the Democratic leadership had not been so determined to install a safe establishment figure like Mills. Platner probably would not have won at all if a Democratic-left coalition had not anointed him as the insurgent candidate (with 3 days of vetting).
A simple campaign with no one’s thumb on the scales might have been more appealing to someone more worthy but less connected.
Yeah, its strange that Democrats don’t actually trust Democracy 
What does that mean? what about this is undemocratic?
It’s in reply to Arminius’ post above. Putting the ‘finger on the scales’ is not trusting the will of the electorate.
You’re going to have to explain that. What is being described is advocacy and people rallying support for their preferred candidate - standard campaigning. You can call it bad politics that the person the DC establishment asked the voters to vote for was such an unappealing candidate in the 78 year old Mills, but there is nothing at all undemocratic about it.
