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Notes -
What are the Democrats’ carrots & sticks for pushing Graham Platner out of the campaign?
If you follow U.S. domestic politics (or if you’ve just read the thread below), then you’ll know who Graham Platner is. He’s the young-ish politician who won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate from Maine, in the process attracting attention for combining liberal political positions with some elements of a blue collar background. In my view, he received a tremendous amount of scrutiny for being at the intersection of 3 significant stories: (1) the Democrats’ struggles to attract rural male voters; (2) the importance of Maine as a toss-up Senate seat in 2028 for deciding the balance of the U.S. senate; and (3) the adoption of certain leftist political positions by new politicians (broadly economic populism and antagonism towards Israel) that are seen as breaking from norms and potentially as a marker of future political currents.
More recently, Platner has also attracted attention for a series of scandals. First, some of his early, intended-to-be-anonymous internet postings were identified, and they were both unseemly and promoted ideas in conflict with his current public political positions. Then, it was revealed that he had a Nazi-symbol tattoo from his time in the military (Platner denies knowing that the tattoo was Nazi imagery when he got it; some people find this explanation believable and others don’t). Then, it was revealed that he’d recently pursued extra-marital relationships through some kind of seedy dating app. Then, some of his ex-girlfriends came together alleging that Platner was volatile and had been trouble towards them in various ways.
Through all this, the Democratic establishment had mostly defended Platner. Then, a few days ago, one of Platner’s exes came forward alleging treatment by Platner that would seem to satisfy the legal standard for rape (some disagree that the alleged conduct would constitute rape - see the discussion below for details).
Anyway, I’m not really interested in re-litigating any of these items. But what really fascinates me is that the Democratic establishment now seems to have arrived at a consensus that Platner’s campaign needs to end so that another candidate might be selected (Platner has essentially lost all prominent public-backing over the last 48 hours). But ultimately, it seems that procedure requires that Platner himself formally resign his campaign in for this to happen. My question is, how can Platner be influenced to abandon his campaign?
Normally, you influence with carrots (rewards for good behavior) and sticks (punishments for bad behavior). Democrats can appeal to Platner’s sense of dignity (such as it is), patriotism, and desire for the common good. But what other levers do they hold?
I doubt that Democrats would just concede Maine if Platner were to remain in the race. If he drops out now, he’ll always be remembered for this last week. But if he stays in the race, then I assume he'll benefit from 4 months of Democrats campaigning for him, seeking to rehabilitate his image. Even if he ends up losing the Senate race badly, that seems like a better outcome for Platner individually than the alternative of dropping out now.
What am I missing here?
My belief is that theoretically, Platner could have survived this, he just needed to be convinced of his own non-guiltiness (or shameless enough) like Trump to keep saying the same thing "the establishment is pulling all the tricks in the book to stop me"/"these are all lies by the same people already lying to you"/etc.
Dropping out of the race is not an admission of guilt in a court of law, but it's certainly an admission of guilt in the court of opinions.
I do like to comment on your use of the word "democratic establishment". Like all big groupings of people, there are always intra-group divisions. Which each new scandal, the amount of people within the "democratic establishment" willing to actively and vocally support Platner becomes only nominally silent support (for solidarity, out of group loyalty, etc.), and a certain amount of nominally silent support became actively and vocally opposed to Platner. The process in reverse is just called momentum. Like Obama, like Trump, like Mamdani, successful politicians are able to get those "in the base" that actively and vocally oppose them to become nominally silent support, and those that used to nominally silent support becomes actively and vocally support.
So anyway, when you're surrounded by people who tell you how bad you are, at some point, somebody breaks. Or maybe someone close to you break, or whatever. If he was wrongly accused, or believed he is completely correct in what he did, it still certainly does take a certain amount of self-conviction to stay on your path.
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Regardless of how true the accusations are, they were tanking his chances in the election by a significant margin and that's assuming that there isn't even more stuff that's going to come out that he is aware of and now realizes will happen. The Dem's chances of winning have skyrocketed back up both right after the accusation where it was assumed he would drop out, and now again after he's officially done it. Politics has deteriorated significantly in the past decade, but there's still some standards left thankfully and a significant chunk of voters don't want to turn out for that. They're willing to tolerate one or two mishaps if there's plausible deniability, especially stuff they might have made themselves (as I covered here, most people obviously would not have recognized the tattoo so they're more forgiving of it) but sexual assault allegations isn't one of them. Most of the voters aren't imagining themselves accidently raping someone as a youthful mistake.
If Platner has any concerns about his idealogical goals, dropping out and trying to push for a replacement that he agrees with on a lot of topics might be the best way for him to achieve them. And it seems he understands this, given that he was making deals on selecting his replacement.
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It's official. He's gone. The only stick they needed was unified unrelenting social pressure.
I find it rather distasteful. The Democratic party apparatus at all levels has displayed sheer contempt for both the results of the primary election and the entire concept of personal loyalty. They gave him nothing for all of his hard work and sucess.
Well, at least they had one this time.
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As of now, this is a moot point: Platner has suspended his campaign and plans to withdraw.
EDIT: canonical link, (@8:40 for suspending his campaign and intending to withdraw)
Hilarious. I was thinking that by the time I posted this, he might already have dropped out.
Still, the point was always moot in the sense of lacking practical significance / being purely academic - I wasn't seeking to sway his decision! So I guess I still have a similar question: what could have happened behind the scenes to convince Platner to abandon his campaign?
Lol, he posted two minutes before you, but spent 7 minutes on preliminaries before clearly dropping out (I skimmed it, so there might be another one before the 7:00 and 8:40 statements).
I don't think they could stop him from running as an independent, but they can pull all their support and tank his campaign that way. I don't know how fundraising works (is it money for Platner, who will spend it on his campaign, or for the Democrats, who sourced it through him and will spend it on the Senate race, or what), which affects how much he could even spend. If it was party funds sourced from his campaign and earmarked for its use, then he might be simply out of luck. If it was personally-allocated funds, then he still needs to have staff willing to accept his money to do work etc.
It would be very difficult to run a campaign of that scale without a political machine backing you. If the Democrat membership as a whole (not just the leaders) reject him, then he won't get any volunteers, staffers, analysts, etc.
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I'm sure they've told Platner that if he stays in they'll destroy him, and if he drops out they'll find some place (less than Senator) for him. I'm also sure they're lying and if Platner drops out they'll bury him. From Platner's point of view, if he believes this, his only winning move is to beat Collins, at which point the Democrats will have to deal with him as Senator.
I really thought he was just going to stay in, try to rehabilitate his image while still in the public eye, and then just lose by 5-10 points. He didn't have to actually beat Colins - he just needed to survive another news cycle, so that the very last thing anyone ever heard about him wasn't calling him a rapist. To me, that seemed like his least-bad option.
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I question the premise that the Democratic establishment had rallied behind Platner. This probably hinges on the question of what we mean by establishment and what we mean by defended. At best, it was begrudgingly. Many of Platner's remaining supporters, for what it's worth, have taken up the line "the Democratic establishment is stabbing Platner in the back so they can install their preferred moderate running dog as the candidate." And, cui bono? Collins would have preferred this come out two weeks from now.
Democrats have plenty of comfortable sinecures that he'll have access to, if he plays nice. Media figure, think tank employee, a professor of feminist studies at the University of Maine. The world is his oyster; just not the Senate.
Democrats can run a write in campaign, like Mukowski a few years back. Platner's negotiating leverage isn't that great, and since Maine has ranked voting, Democrats can plausibly pull off a win. Or certainly doom him to a loss.
I guess I just don't see this - I don't see him doing much better than his old oyster farm job if he drops out now.
In any case, what are the mechanics here? Like, how do these conversations actually work? Is someone offering an explicit quid pro quo (Graham, if you drop out now, then next year we'll put you on the payroll at Colby college)? Is that even legal? Either way, how could Platner rely on any such assurance?
It's possible, but it sure seems like a long shot to me. Murkowski was a known entity (she was the incumbent Senator, was reasonably popular, and came from a prominent family), and she hit the ground running (she already had her campaign infrastructure in place for the Republican primary, which she lost). For Maine, it's not even clear who the write-in candidate would be - and that person would only have 4 months to build the campaign. Admittedly, I never thought Murkowski had a chance at winning as a write-in candidate.
The oyster farm job is his ceiling, not his floor. His one customer is liable to drop him if the publicity gets bad enough.
doesn't his mom own the restaurant?
Even worse. He would ruin his mom's job too.
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