OPINION:
It would be understandable if Maine Gov. Janet Mills now regrets dropping out of the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate on April 30.
It is for the same reason that Sen. Susan M. Collins might be tempted to begin preparing invitations to her swearing-in for a sixth term in January.
Though Ms. Mills blamed poor fundraising numbers for abandoning her Senate bid, the real reason was likely that she feared losing to Democratic firebrand “oyster farmer” Graham Platner, the newest darling of the far, far left, who this week was exposed in yet another distasteful — and what should be disqualifying — scandal.
Will leftist Sens. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent, and Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat — whose enthusiastic endorsements of Mr. Platner have pooh-poohed previous scandals involving a huge Nazi SS skull tattoo on his chest and since-deleted racist, sexist and anti-police social media posts — continue to stand by him, despite new revelations of his online musings about masturbating in porta-potties and penis graffiti on restroom-stall walls?
“In one March 2017 post on Reddit’s r/Military forum, Platner responded to a discussion about nostalgic military smells by writing: ’I still have to jerk off every time I sit in a portas——er … that blue water smell conditioned me,’” Fox News reported Tuesday. (Mr. Platner is a Marine veteran.)
“In another post from March 2021, on Reddit’s r/USMC forum, Mr. Platner described a crude penis drawing inside a portable toilet while deployed overseas,” Fox reported. “Responding to a thread dedicated to [penis ’art’], Platner launched into an extended monologue praising the explicit graffiti in unusually vivid terms, calling it ’beautiful,’ ’engorged and veiny’ and moving ’towards its penetrative glory.’”
Because Ms. Mills suspended her Senate campaign less than the required 70-day minimum before the state’s June 9 primary, the term-limited governor’s name could not be removed from the Senate primary ballot.
Yet because Maine offers 30 days of early “in-person absentee” voting, which began May 11, Ms. Mills could still theoretically win the primary if voters choose her name over Mr. Platner’s.
Whether Ms. Mills jumps back into the race — and if not, whether Mr. Platner’s perversions cause Maine Democratic primary voters to defect to the third candidate on their ballot, Maryland transplant and longtime environmental bureaucrat David Allen Costello — remains to be seen.
Either way, Mr. Platner has become the gift that keeps on giving to Ms. Collins, who is the only Republican member of the Senate or House from the entire New England region. (Thank Democratic gerrymandering in no small part for that in the House.)
As of this writing, however, a quick Google search found that Mr. Platner’s icky online musings about pleasuring himself in porta-potties and about the wall art therein had not been reported by any major media outlets other than Fox News and a handful of conservative websites, including Breitbart and The Daily Caller.
As of now, there is also no indication that any of this has dampened Mr. Sanders’ enthusiasm for the prospect of Mr. Platner joining him in the Senate. The Vermonter is scheduled to campaign with him at two Memorial Day weekend rallies in Maine on Sunday and Monday.
Meanwhile, it is hard to tell from here how widely aware Maine voters are of this latest development. If they are, it is impossible to gauge how many Democrats in the Pine Tree State who cast early-voting ballots for Mr. Platner before that news broke would like to rescind those votes.
The trouble is, they cannot.
Voter remorse of this sort is one more reason why early voting, especially in states such as Maine, where it runs for weeks before Election Day, is a bad idea and should be repealed or, at a minimum, scaled back.
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