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Democrats keep telling us they want a fresh face to take on Susan Collins, and now they’ve apparently found one in Graham Platner — an oyster farmer and Marine veteran suddenly thrust into the national spotlight. He’s marketed himself as an anti-establishment populist with strong working-class rhetoric, and Democrats hoped that outsider appeal might finally crack Collins’ long incumbency.
But the “fresh face” narrative has come with a rotten core: revelations about a chest tattoo that resembled a Nazi skull-and-crossbones forced Platner to cover it up and answer for his judgment. This isn’t a trivial campaign gaffe; it’s a symbol that carries real baggage, and the candidate’s attempt to wave it away as youthful ignorance won’t placate skeptical voters.
The uglier details keep emerging — old Reddit posts reportedly surfaced in which Platner made crude, violent, and dismissive remarks, prompting concern and condemnation from local law enforcement groups. When a candidate’s online trail includes praise for political violence and derision of sexual assault survivors, the question becomes whether Democrats are promoting principles or simply gambling on raw charisma.
Even his campaign hasn’t been steady: a newly hired campaign manager resigned after just days on the job, leaving donors and volunteers to wonder about the operation’s competence and credibility. Meanwhile, a former aide publicly criticized the campaign for not confronting the tattoo issue sooner, charging that Platner had known more about its connotations than he admitted — not the picture of transparency a first-time candidate should be showing.
And yet, despite the scandals, Platner’s buzz hasn’t died; some polls show him in strikingly competitive territory with Collins, which should alarm every voter tired of Washington’s one-party arrogance. That tenuous standing is a reminder that emotional populism and viral videos can propel troubled figures into serious contention, and it’s why Republicans can’t be complacent even against a Democrat who’s been mired in controversy.
Conservative readers should be clear-eyed: the left’s rush to coronate outsiders doesn’t erase real problems, and neither does the media’s instinct to normalize scandal when it fits a narrative. If Democrats elevate candidates with troubling pasts because they’re flashy or fundraise well, real accountability goes out the window and the electorate gets played for a backdrop to bigger partisan ambitions.
In Maine and across the country, voters deserve better than spectacle politics and messy morality plays; they deserve candidates who respect symbols, the law, and the people they hope to represent. Susan Collins has her critics, but Republicans should take advantage of these Democrats’ self-inflicted wounds by offering a clear, principled alternative that focuses on results, not viral moments.
