Graham Platner Is a Disaster. Democrats Need More Candidates Like Him.
Writing in Politico, Jonathan Martin sees a lesson here for those less clear-eyed (or, depending on how you look at it, jaundiced) than himself. Democrats, he argued on Wednesday, fall in love with flawed candidates, backing them despite flaws that are oh-so-obvious to party brahmins (and, it goes without saying, Martin himself). “There’s a reason besides their preexisting fundraising lists why [Chuck] Schumer and his lieutenants prefer those who’ve run statewide and even, horror of horrors, ‘career politicians,’” Martin sniffed. “It’s because such candidates have been vetted and, if it exists, the oppo file on their youthful (or middle-aged) indiscretions has likely already been emptied.”
That’s true enough; no one fears that Mills has contemptible social media posts or tattoos that are yet to be discovered. But Martin then argues that Democrats who clamor for outsiders and antiestablishment figures—for normal people who have spent their life doing the kinds of things normal people do, which is very different from what people who plan to go into politics do—have lost touch with reality. “The pure democracy of candidate crowdsourcing is hardly superior to kingmaking when it comes to winning elections, as recent events illustrate,” he wrote.
I’m not so convinced. Martin populates his argument with a graveyard of fallen candidates—Amy McGrath, Stacey Abrams, Beto O’Rourke—who don’t actually have much in common other than losing to Republicans in prominent races. McGrath, running to unseat Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, was a huge long shot who raked in money by selling boomers a fantasy (beating the hated McConnell). Abrams and O’Rourke certainly resonated with the base, but both were seasoned pols with establishment connections—not really comparable to Platner, a military veteran and oyster farmer. And the DSCC backed McGrath but not O’Rourke, who said he didn’t want the support.
