The Nazi tattoo should have been disqualifying, and Platner knew it was a Nazi tattoo from the get-go. But, you know, Democrats
Why Some Women in Maine Are Mourning the End of Graham Platner’s Campaign
Cory Upton-Cosulich sat in a parked car by a hiking trail in Maine this week, fuming over the implosion of Graham Platner’s Senate campaign.
Her anger wasn’t directed at him.
It was aimed at the powerful people far away from her working-class harbor town who, one after the next, had rescinded their endorsements of a candidate she supported in the Democratic primary last month. The feeling was familiar — watching people in Washington decide who should represent her.
She said she believed the woman who had accused Mr. Platner of rape, a claim he has denied. She believed the other allegations too. She decided to support him anyway, because he had promised to work on her behalf, and she believed him.
“Establishment Dems are clutching their pearls because they don’t have him on a leash,” Ms. Upton-Cosulich, 40, typed into the box on Facebook asking her what was on her mind as she sat in her car. “The people of Maine want change.”
How many other liberal women feel the same way? And why do any of them feel this strongly about any politician? None of them are good people. But, hey, what kind of change do they want? Nazi stuff?
Democrats at every level of the party assumed that women who had supported Mr. Platner would be thrilled that he was being pushed out of the race. Instead, some women in this independent-minded slice of the country who powered the progressive upstart’s meteoric rise are angry and grieving.
Some of their pain stems from the loss of a candidate who put words to their frustrations with a political system that they feel makes their lives harder, not easier. Mr. Platner, they said, made them believe that a different reality was possible. His vision resonated so deeply that neighbors who had spent a decade disagreeing found common ground in someone who sounded like them.
So, he gave them pretty words, then ruined healthcare/insurance, created massive racial strife, and so much more? Oh, wait, that was Obama. What would Platner do? Most likely just be yet another BS politician.
That excitement was powerful enough for many women to push past their own feelings, after a monthslong trickle of unsavory revelations, that Mr. Platner was a morally compromised candidate. He had weathered scrutiny over a tattoo that is widely recognized as a Nazi symbol, a history of offensive online posts and a series of allegations by women he had dated that he had acted in disturbing ways.
“I supported him with trepidation,” said Kat Higgins, 64, a retired nurse, on a power walk through the coastal city of Belfast this week. “I was giving him the benefit of the doubt because of the bigger picture.”
So giving the benefit of the doubt on a Nazi tattoo? Lefrist women are broken.
This week, as news spread that Mr. Platner had withdrawn from the race, The New York Times spoke with more than 40 women along Maine’s coast about why they felt that he had deserved their support.
Many of them explained that, after falling in love with his movement and its possibilities, they placed just as much blame on the leaders who had elevated Mr. Platner, and their failure to find someone less fallible, as on the candidate himself.
We knew about the Nazi tattoo early. The time to drop your support was then, regardless of what the Elites said.
Several women said they recognized Mr. Platner’s swaggering style from men in their lives who had hurt them.
They supported him anyway, at least until this week, because he cared about their medical bills, had ideas to make housing more affordable and seemed to be a normal guy who meant what he said and took responsibility for past mistakes. They saw him as a potential answer to a leadership void they believed existed on the left since former President Barack Obama left office.
“Normal guys” with Nazi tattoos who assaulted women
Although she believes the woman, Jenny Racicot, who said Mr. Platner had raped her, she also believes, with just as much conviction, that politicians in Washington are corrupt. Not only had many of them, including President Trump, survived their own allegations of sexual assault, but they seemed to have lost sight of their main responsibility to the regular people who had elected them, Ms. Upton-Cosulich said.
These AWFLs have killed #MeToo. Congrats!
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Are you a kid — or do you know a kid — who is learning about climate change?
