The title of this HL number poses a question not just for Graham Platner but the Democratic Party as well.  Platner’s 10 minute, 51 second public address “suspending his Senate campaign on July 9 (PLEAST WATCH) came over either as an “I’ll be back” or an audition for a movie about Hitler writing Mein Kampf in a Bavarian prison in 1925 or the Führer and Amy Gertner[1] (Sorry I mean Eva Braun) in the Führerbunker on April 30, 1945.

Raquel Welch

How did Graham do in this try-out?  As for the look and feel, Platner does not resemble Adolf at either stage but looks precisely like what Hitler wanted to.  He’s also the paradigm of a 1920s beerhall Nazi (mit or mit out showing his tattoo) or a 1930s stormtrooper or, more to the point, one of Hitler’s elite guard at the Berchtesgaden in 1945.  As perfect say as Russell Crowe the Gladiator or Alec Baldwin the bad boyfriend or Raquel Welch as LUST.

As for Platner’s voice and demeanor, it is similarly superlative, as was his message.  He constantly invoked unnamed but clearly understood “large forces” and a “corporate media system” that torpedoed him, Amy and their campaign of “regular people” and “normal people.”

Russell Crowe

As for the more fully fleshed out charges of physical abuse and rape against Platner – detailed more fully than in the New York Times’ gentle and bowdlerized exposé – Platner said “this is all false . . . not real . . . did not happen.”  As I’ve said early and often, e.g. in HL 47 “Me Too for Due Process” (January 9, 2018) unless and until adjudicated or admitted such charges are allegations.  But according to Platner, these allegations did not come from the women we watched as they detailed them on TV but from those “large forces . . . working against you” and that “corporate media system” that are “judge, jury and executioner.”  A system “not built for normal people” that “are going to take everything away from us.”  The ill-defined but constantly invoked “they” doing this to Platner and Amy are not from Maine and must stay out of Maine as the process to replace him goes forward.

Platner explained that “Amy and I are regular people” and “we were not looking for this experience, we were not looking to get into politics, we had no desire to run for office.”  But he didn’t mention that he was recruited to run for the Senate by Morris Katz, a top campaign and media advisor to Zohran Mamdani from New York City, which on last inspection was not within the Maine fatherland.

Alec Baldwin

Platner did explain that the “political establishment” from outside Maine who ousted him from the Senate race did so because “they would rather see Susan Collins win than have me be the next Senator from Maine.”  That apparently is true but not the only option.  Rather than Collins, who I described as “a national joke and spectacle, at least outside Maine” (HL 92 “Susan Collins Says Trump Has Learned His Lesson – Have Maine Voters Learned Theirs?” February 6, 2020) or Platner, an identity faker, liar, Nazi fan boy, alleged rapist and without any relevant experience, Maine voters will now have a third alternative.  The Platner debacle seemed to substantially foreclose the prospects of Platner’s replacement winning in November.  However, the tragic ICE summary execution of Joan Sebastian Guerrero this week may at last move Maine voters to oust Susan Collins in this race that may also result in a Democratic majority in the Senate.  But even if both those things occur, that should not lead Democrats to conclude that putting people like Platner on the ballot works.  He was most likely to lose and had he won would have been another unqualified lying scumbag in our government, headed by one.

[1]  I have explained, most specifically in HL 210 (March 10, 2026) why I believe spouses of electeds and candidates should be off limits while discussing how the press was treating the social media activity of Dan Goldman’s and Zohran Mamdani’s wives.  I said, “I believe both wives should be off-limits unless they act in governmental capacities or insert themselves into those discussions.”  As you have seen or will see when you read on, Platner has consistently billed his candidacy as a “we” and an “Amy and I.”