Forget corruption: From Graham Platner to Ken Paxton, both parties embrace the politics of hypocrisy
Imagine, for a moment, that Graham Platner was a Republican.
The Democrats would be going nuclear, declaring him a horrible human being.
He’s utterly unfit for office, they would shout, sexting other women while he was married.
How could he represent Maine in the Senate, they would say, when he was sporting a Nazi tattoo?
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Look at the New York Times, which found three women who say he physically manhandled them and made them extremely uncomfortable.
How could the Republicans even dream that he could win an election?
But of course, Platner is a Democrat – a very liberal Democrat – so it’s okay. They are glossing over all the garbage that’s come out and playing up his military record.
Sheer, unadulterated hypocrisy.
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Now in fairness, a few Democrats have raised questions about Platner’s checkered past and expressed doubts about his candidacy.
But what was he thinking, running for office with an oyster boat full of baggage? (He doesn’t really make any money from oysters but it fits his salt-of-the-earth image.)
This race is getting huge national attention because the Dems need to flip a state like Maine if they’re going to have a serious shot at taking control of the Senate.
It was a huge miscalculation for Platner to think he could run for the Senate and just wall off part of his life, other than to say he drank heavily, battled depression and PTSD after combat duty, but has put that part of his life behind him.
Platner, 41, joined the Marines after high school and did three combat tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.
Platner does have a natural charisma that has drawn potential voters to his side. And all most Democrats care about at this point is whether he can oust veteran Republican senator Susan Collins.
I blame the press for showing up too late. Journalists loved covering a rough-edged character far more interesting than the standard-issue suit-and-tie lawyer who looks like he was conjured up in a consultant’s office.
By the time the scandals erupted, tomorrow’s Maine primary was practically upon us.
Remember, Maine’s low-key, 78-year-old governor, Janet Mills, was supposed to be the nominee. But she suspended her campaign after falling way behind, though her name remains on the ballot.
Platner appears not to be telling the truth about the Nazi tattoo. One of the ex-girlfriends who spoke to the Times, Lyndsey Fifeld, said he told her this was "my Totenkopf," a German word for death’s head.
Platner has dismissed her account because she has worked with conservative groups and GOP campaigns, which Fifeld says is irrelevant.
While Platner never hit her, according to Fifeld’s account, he "regularly grabbed her by the shoulders — sometimes hard enough to leave marks — and, on one occasion, yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument when she wanted to stay in the car." In another incident, she says, "he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out, telling her to remain there until she was ‘calm.’" – and fell asleep. "It hurt," she said.
What’s more, Fifeld says, Platner would fantasize about killing people he deemed a threat, and told her he would rape them because rape is about power. In a 2016 diary entry, Fifeld called Platner "the most toxic, literally abusive man on earth who destroyed my life."
Another former girlfriend, Jenny Racicot, said Platner "does not respect women" and that his behavior was "reckless" and "unsettling," adding that he once showed up drunk after she told him not to come over. (Some other exes said they had a good relationship.)
Such liberal lawmakers as Elizabeth Warren and Ro Khanna have campaigned with Platner, although Khanna called his past behavior "misogynistic" and said he should apologize to the women.
In an interview with MSNOW’s Chris Hayes, Platner said "anything alleging physicality, anything alleging that I knew what my tattoo was, these are the statements of someone who’s politically motivated."
Platner is constantly dropping F-bombs in public. Maybe Maine voters will decide they don’t care about past misconduct and will focus on Platner’s populist agenda, including higher wages and better health care. But clearly, his liberal allies would sing a much different tune if he was a Republican.
Now neither party has a monopoly on selective outrage. Republicans got nervous after Ken Paxton won the Senate nomination in Texas, with President Trump’s endorsement, defeating incumbent senator John Cornyn.
To say that the state attorney general, who will face Democrat James Talarico, has a scandal-scarred history is a wild understatement.
Paxton was impeached by the Texas House, although the Senate did not convict him, after top aides reported him to the FBI for abusing his office to aid an Austin donor and real estate developer. But DOJ dropped the probe.
He reached a settlement over federal charges of health care fraud. And his soon-to-be ex-wife has accused him of adultery.
But hey, winning is the name of the game. The Texas GOP deleted posts about Paxton’s "lies" as soon as he became the nominee.
A few prominent Republicans have abandoned Paxton, such as former Fort Worth mayor Betsy Price, who called him "corrupt and immoral."
But in the reddest of red states, which hasn’t elected a statewide Democrat in 40 years, the alternative is unthinkable.
The National Republican Campaign Committee didn’t even mention Paxton on the night of the primary, focusing on attacking Talarico instead.
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Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who backed Cornyn, said in a radio interview that "obviously we are making the pivot." Paxton is "all-in, ready to go for the fall election, already on the phone raising money and all the things you’re going to have to do to be successful…Losing is not an option when it comes to the state of Texas."
Now flip the script. If Paxton was a Democrat, these same Texas Republicans would be screaming about how bribery, fraud, impeachment and adultery renders him totally unqualified for the Senate.
They would be wringing their hands about what an embarrassment he would be to the Lone Star State.
That’s utter hypocrisy as well. They don’t want to lose the seat. Period.
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Some Republicans may hold their nose and support Paxton, but many others could just stay home.
Maybe the old standards have melted away. After all, Donald Trump survived about a thousand scandals and still managed to win a second term.
The final takeaway: Politicians will tolerate just about anything in their own battered candidate while expressing sheer disgust at the opposing candidate, if that’s what it takes to win. And that’s yet another reason why Americans hate politics.