[Note: This post contains vulgar language.]
Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, already facing scrutiny over previously disclosed offensive Reddit posts, is under renewed fire after Fox News unearthed another batch of crude comments.
Fox reported that Platner:
[M]ade graphic sexual comments on his now-deleted account about masturbating in portable toilets and explicit graffiti found in military restrooms.
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.”…In another post from March 2021 on Reddit’s r/USMC forum, Platner described a crude penis drawing inside a portable toilet while deployed overseas.Responding to a thread dedicated to so-called “GWOT D*** 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.””Oh s***!!!,” Platner wrote. “You’ve got the Hot Rod C*** from Manas!”The post accompanied a photograph of a smiling serviceman posing beside the explicit illustration inside the portable restroom.”I sat there in sheer awe,” Platner wrote. “The soul filling joy to be allowed to witness such glory.”
The full archive of Platner’s deleted Reddit comments can be viewed on The Maine Monitor.
When the first wave of posts was disclosed, Fox reached out to Platner for comment. He replied, “You should read the comments in context. It’s very clear I’m joking.
“It’s called s***posting. It’s when you argue with people on the internet and try to bother them,” he said, adding, “So, yeah, no, it’s very obviously not true.”
Separately, Platner’s tasteless response to a Reddit video showing an American soldier being shot by the Taliban has come to light.
This video never gets old. Dumb motherf***er didn’t deserve to live. At least his stupidity and fat a** wheezing are available for all future infantrymen to witness and hold in contempt. Poor marksmanship on the Taliban’s part is the only reason this mouthbreather made it home, he managed to make every possible sh** decision possible when it comes to small unit combat.
It should be noted that Platner is 41 years old, meaning he wrote these comments in his thirties — well beyond the point when crude online behavior can be chalked up to youthful indiscretion.
Remarkably, Platner continues to lead incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in the RealClearPolitics polling average by 6.8 points despite prior revelations of vulgar posts and the Nazi tattoo on his chest. But with the most recent poll included in the average conducted in late March — well before the latest round of posts emerged — continued support from some of his backers may prove a bridge too far.
Democrats have long considered Collins’ seat to be a prime pickup opportunity, but they would be mistaken to underestimate her support in the state. She was widely expected to lose her 2020 reelection bid. On the eve of the election, the final RCP polling average showed her trailing Democratic nominee Sara Gideon, the speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, by 5.5 points.
Collins wound up winning the race by 8.6 points.
Platner received an endorsement from Democratic Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont last August and another from far-left Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren in March.
Although Sanders, Warren, and most Democrats will try to minimize the significance of Platner’s newly disclosed remarks, just as they did his previous ones, GOP strategist and senior national security and legal analyst for The Daily Signal, Mehek Cooke, told Fox News this will “matter.” Voters, he said, are “deciding whether Graham Platner has the judgment, temperament, and basic decency to represent Maine in the Senate.”
Cooke continued, “His campaign has been built around authenticity and moral seriousness. These posts undercut both. Platner is not a truth-teller. He is someone whose instincts appear crude, reckless, and deeply unserious. And by the way, if they were really ‘jokes,’ why delete the posts? That sounds less like humor and more like a CYA cleanup operation.”
He added that a single “tasteless post can be chalked up to immaturity, but a years-long trail of vulgar, sexually degrading, and slur-filled commentary is a character issue.”
Whether Platner’s growing list of controversies ultimately hurts his standing with Maine voters remains to be seen. But Collins has repeatedly defied polling expectations in Maine, and Republicans are betting the renewed scrutiny surrounding Platner will once again reshape the dynamics of a race Democrats once viewed as winnable.
This will be one of the cycle’s most closely watched Senate races.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on LinkedIn.
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