Still Too Soon To Tell If Susan Collins Will Face Sitting Maine Governor Or Human Nazi Art Museum

Youthful indiscretions ...

There’s been a lot of coverage — dare I say, too much — about the upcoming Senate election in Maine, specifically the Democratic primary. It seems to have quickly become another proxy fight between the fossilized Democratic establishment and the kooky wannabe populist left.

Democratic Gov. Janet Mills recently entered the race, after an extended period of deliberation that makes Hamlet look impulsive, and Perpetual Flop-Sweat Machine Chuck Schumer quickly endorsed her, even though she’s 77 right now and would turn 79 before she’s sworn into office. Some mainstream Democrats have argued that Bernie Sanders, who’s 84, Ed Markey, who’s 79, and even Elizabeth Warren, who’s a youthful 76, are also on the old side, but this ignores the obvious fact that they are incumbent senators with seniority. That’s different from starting your first term when you’re almost 80. Mills has said in advance that she’d only serve one term — for real, not like when Susan Collins said she’d only serve two terms back in 1996, which unfortunately was not 12 years ago — so Democrats would have to run for the open seat again in 2028. (Watch below.)

Schumer has said that Mills, a two-term governor, is the best positioned to defeat Collins. Put into some context, the last Democratic governor from Georgia was Roy Eugene Barnes. He was 72 in 2020 and he might’ve seemed more likely to defeat incumbent David Perdue than 33-year-old Jon Ossoff, who had no established record winning statewide. However, I think it paid off to have a senior senator from Georgia who can serve more than one term.

You’d think the party would have learned something from Joe Biden, Dianne Feinstein, and the alarming number of Democrats who’ve recently died in office. Arizona Rep-elect. Adelita Grijalva, who Mike Johnson refuses to swear in, will theoretically replace her father who died back in March and probably shouldn’t have run for re-election.

The younger, non-establishment candidate is oyster farmer and military veteran Graham Platner, who soon caught fire with the left and received Sanders’s endorsement. This pretty much guaranteed that mainstream Democrats would reject him, but their antipathy is not entirely unwarranted. Platner isn’t simply an untested candidate. He’s also pretty much a big mess.

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CNN recently uncovered Platner’s misadventures on Reddit, where he posted under the username “P-Hustle,” which is I would judge more harshly if my AOL Instant Messenger handle from the 1990s wasn’t “Juliesback.” As recently as 2021, Platner described himself as “a communist” who stated that all cops are bastards. This is all within Susan Collins’s current Senate term. The internet is forever, so the media easily found some even older posts, including several where he used “gay” and “retard” as derogatory terms, minimized sexual assault, and wondered why Black people don’t tip. This isn’t just a weird Reddit topic. It’s surprising to see the number of mainstream media stories stating that Black people tip less than other races. (This probably creates a self-fulfilling cycle where Black patrons don’t receive the best service because they’re assumed to not tip well, and the Black patrons in turn don’t tip well because they received poor service.)

More damning than the stupid remarks online was a leaked video of Platner with what appears to be a Nazi Totenkopf tattoo on his chest. Tattoos aren’t birth marks. You choose to put them on your body. Platner said he picked up the tattoo in 2007 when he was in the Marines. He was out drinking while on leave in Croatia and next thing you know, he’s got Nazi symbols on his body. He originally claimed he didn’t know this specific skull and crossbones imagery was Nazi linked. Perhaps he thought he was a pirate. His ignorance is not entirely plausible.

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Platner’s defenders insist that we need more “normal” people in politics, although I wouldn’t define getting drunk in Croatia and waking up with a Nazi tattoo average Joe behavior. It’s more like the antics of a wacky sitcom lead, and while notoriously bad judgment makes for compelling plot lines, I don’t think Peter Griffin would make a good U.S. senator. (Watch below.)

When CNN’s Jake Tapper brought up Platner’s Nazi tattoo hijinks, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said, “He sounds like a human being to me. A human being who made mistakes, recognizes them, and is very open about it.”

I saw Spice World (twice) in the theater, but I avoided anything so permanent as putting Emma Bunton’s name on my chest. I definitely never considered any Nazi tattoos. (I am grateful that no footage exists of me from 25 years ago in frilly H&M shirts.) And while I had a few drinks in me when I saw Spice World (twice), I don’t pretend I was unaware of my actions.

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Of course, the larger question is whether Democratic primary voters will consider all this disqualifying. Polls conducted after the old Reddit posts and Nazi tattoo debacle show Platner ahead of Mills by double digits. His favorability rating is slightly higher than the two-term governor’s, and 45 percent of Maine Democrats polled said they were more likely to vote for Platner after hearing his statements defending his past misadventures. However, some other polls show Mills leading Platner after the Nazi tattoo fallout. Political polling is often like fooling around with a ouija board.

I think many Democratic primary voters might question whether any standards even matter these days when Donald Trump is president, confessed whale-carcass bandit Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed after a sexting scandal, and drunken lout Pete Hegseth is running the Department of Defense after even worse allegations. Al Franken and Katie Hill defenders have argued that Democrats shoot themselves in the foot over the types of scandals and misdeeds that Republicans routinely shrug off.

Of course, Democrats did rally behind and support John Fetterman after his stroke, a condition he wasn’t fully transparent about with voters, and mental health issues, which are obviously ongoing. Mills supporters correctly note that she’s (very) old but at least she’s reliable. She’s the political equivalent of tuning into a 25th season episode of Law & Order. You know what you’re getting, without any risk of surprises. It’s not an unreasonable fear that Platner might shift from left-wing populist to MAGA apologist after another drunken night in Croatia.

Unfortunately, an issue for Mills is that Democratic primary voters are pissed off and she’s openly friendly with Collins. She seems to not fully grasp this particular moment, considering that she supports keeping the filibuster and the last thing we need is another Joe Manchin/Kyrsten Sinema “institutionalist.”

However, the upside for Mills is that she’s able to maintain staff. Platner keeps losing key people with each new scandal, most recently his latest campaign manager.

The 2026 midterms aren’t for another year, so we still have some time. Perhaps Maine can field some better candidates. I have friends in the state, so I can confirm there are better options.