15 Comments
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Edward Ohlbaum's avatar

The first lesson in How to Win and Stay in Public Office 101: Avoid impropriety, even the appearance of impropriety.

Max B. Sawicky's avatar

Appearance will get you unless you're an incumbent. Then you have more leeway. Less if you're a Democrat.

Owen Paine's avatar

That's good advice

About future conduct

Its past conduct that requires only believable repentance

Steve Cohen's avatar

I am in approximate agreement with you. I was militantly ignoring the allegations against Platner up until the rape allegation. Once that dropped, I reluctantly concluded he had to go. Even if false, the rape story was going to drag him down, especially in view of his admissions to lesser stuff. The point was to defeat Collins. It looked like he was the man for the job. Then he wasn’t. Also, his “working class” credentials were suspect and a possible Achilles heel.

Whether the allegations were true or false doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have hurt him. They made it harder for him to claim the mantle of the man best placed to defeat Collins as the woman who made it possible for alleged rapist Kavanaugh to join the Supreme Court. Dems are more dependent on the anti-misogyny vote.

That doesn’t mean he wasn’t the victim of a huge malodorous effort to get him out. The whole thing is just fucking sad.

Owen Paine's avatar

Working class ?

No

he is what he is

Did what he did

The absolutely poison toad

On this is

Kenny o' Donald

of LSMFT BLUE SMOKE SHOP

That pompous EMPTY RENTED tuxedo

Bottled

Moynihan turd

Owen Paine's avatar

Btw I hate Crotchkissers

Like most

Antique scroatems

Owen Paine's avatar

So I held that against

The salt bearded clam

But boy does he have the best set of enemies

Ziggy's avatar

I'm not much into moral purity myself, and agree that being a replacement value "D" is far more important than being a good "D." But the problem with Platner is that he was such an obvious flake that he might have gone the way of John Fetterman. Fetterman is substantially below replacement value as a "D," although he is still better than an R.

I opposed Platner before his nom, but supported him afterward (with checkbook), since the alternative was Susan Collins. I was happy that got deep-sixed--he seems less electable than Generic D.

hardindr's avatar
2dEdited

This guy never should have gotten any backing,so obvious are the faults with him. He has lied about everything, starting with his tattoo. A candidate screams, “Don’t support Me!” when they fire all of their first campaign team, or they quit en mass and the candidate tries to force them sign NDAs. He had a huge chance of turning into Fetterman or Sinema. https://bsky.app/profile/aaronhuertas.bsky.social/post/3mpyzc2ng7s26

Max B. Sawicky's avatar

I'm not impressed by all the claims that we should have known.

Nobody knows what kind of senator he would have turned out to be. What is clear is we need more than another place-holder.

John Emerson's avatar

Some of the enemy op research didn't amount to much,and the late release of the rape story seemed staged to me. Democrats I knew just parroted the opp research and seemed triumphant when they finally got the guy, rather than sick that probably Collins would win another term. Not only could he (maybe) get rid of the worthless Collins, but he seemed to be able to speak to constituencies Ds can't usually reach. (No, not rapists. Shut up). The Maine voters also seem to be left out of the argument.

John Emerson's avatar

I lost 3-4friends by saying about what you said.

Owen Paine's avatar

Absolutely superb

I'll wreck my cred

As I add this

The importance of one's

Personal life ends when

Running for public office

So long as you don't get indicted

On the campaign trail

Or commited black.mailable act

Max B. Sawicky's avatar

Your cred is good here.

Steve Philion's avatar

I didn’t think Franken should have resigned, but to be fair Tina Smith was the ideal replacement.