CSotD: The State of the Disunion
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The knives are out for Graham Platner, the likely Democratic candidate (pending Tuesday’s primaries) challenging Maine Senator Susan Collins in November. Since Platner doesn’t have a legislative record to run on, it’s not surprising that his personal past is taking center stage.
Varvel’s cartoon sums up the superficial aspects, with Collins the aging candidate who can’t maintain a good campaigning pace and Platner depicted as a clown with a horrific past.
And the words he puts in Collins’ mouth seem reminiscent of a Saturday Night Live skit from 1988:
It should be noted that SNL has always been more dedicated to mockery than to serious political analysis and satire. However, it should also be remembered that Dukakis was clobbered in the election.
At the moment, Varvel’s cartoon has the race right: Platner has a substantial lead in the polls of 48.7% compared to Collins’ 41.3 %, which is not a runaway but hardly a deadlock.
The personal attacks on Platner are hitting home at least with cartoonists and other commentators, although the poll results suggest that the scandal aspect may be more entertaining to a national audience than important to Mainers themselves.
There is something of a Swift Boat aspect to some of the attacks, given that the most prominent woman accusing Platner of mistreating her when they dated was employed by the conservative Heritage Foundation and founded “Women for Kavanaugh,” supporting the SCOTUS nominee against a claim of sexual assault.
Platner, meanwhile, admits to his past crude behavior and dubious views, attributing them to his being steeped in Marine Corps machismo and PTSD from his wartime experiences, and his wife backs him up, saying “No marriage is perfect, and I don’t want a perfect marriage. I want my marriage.”
And one of the comrades with whom he got that Nazi tattoo confirms his explanation that they were drunk and saw the design in a tattoo shop, choosing it because it looked tough but not knowing its historic background. However, that source is strongly pro-Platner, while anti-Platner publications claim he did know.
In any case, one reason Michael Dukakis was in a position to lose to George H. W. Bush in 1988 was that Gary Hart managed to implode his campaign for the Democratic nomination by getting caught in an extramarital affair.
It was a different time, back in the days when Thomas Eagleton had to drop out of George McGovern’s campaign because he’d been treated for depression, and Edmund Muskie’s campaign could be throttled by a Nixon staffer forging a letter under his name.
In any case, should Platner win in November, he will not — I promise you — be the first member of Congress to have had sex with a person not his spouse.
I’m reminded of a line from Goldoni’s 1746 comedy, Servant of Two Masters:
People talk about the women, and they never say a word about the men. We get all the blame, and you are allowed to do as you please. Do you know why? Because ’tis the men who have made the laws. If the women had made them, things would be just the other way. If I were a queen, I’d make every man who was unfaithful carry a branch of a tree in his hand, and all the towns would look like forests.
Platner is not the only lightning rod in the current election cycle. Bok joins Trump in suggesting fraud in California’s primaries because the final count has not yet been released.
There’s some potential significance to what otherwise seems Trump again reflexively shouting “hoax” after any election that doesn’t confirm his views.
Much of the delay in California is due to the large percentage of mail-in ballots, which are time-consuming to count, and Trump (who votes by mail himself) wants to ban mail-in voting.
The times I’ve been a poll worker, absentee ballots were counted during the live voting, having not been opened until Election Day itself. It was fitted into the slack periods so that, when the polls closed, both the machine votes and absentee ballots were up-to-date, and results could be announced, pending final confirmation and any necessary recounts.
But the popularity of mail-in voting yields a far larger number of late-arriving ballots, much more critical to results than a handful of delayed absentee military and overseas votes. This obviously makes for longer counts, since — unless and until SCOTUS rules otherwise in Watson v NRC — ballots postmarked by Election Day often arrive later and still must be counted.
It was late-arriving absentee ballots that sealed George W. Bush’s victory in 2000, but the Republicans now want to halt counting any ballots, regardless of when they were postmarked, that are not received by Election Day.
Those few people left who could actually remember D-Day yesterday may also remember a common expression in those days, “Don’t you know there’s a war going on?”
There is — despite the fact that there’s supposed to be a ceasefire — but we’re concentrating on gilding the nation’s capital and putting the president’s name on anything that stands still long enough.
Not that Dear Leader isn’t focusing on national security. He has announced the addition of a drone port on top of the White House ballroom, complete with trucks and soldiers stationed there to protect the nation’s capital.
Not sure how those trucks will get up there, or why turning the Executive Mansion into a military target seems like a good idea, but given that a judge has said the above-ground ballroom project requires congressional approval, perhaps you could call your legislators and ask them.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Negotiations to resolve the war continue, despite Iran’s refusal to participate in any more talks as long as the ceasefire means that the US continues to launch “self-defense” attacks and blockade their port and Israel continues to attack Lebanon.
Thus while there seems a contrast between Matson’s view of a dozing Trump and Wuerker’s image of Trump, Hegseth and Rubio tangled in a straitjacket, they share a vision of things going nowhere.
The view from Syria suggests that only one side feels pressured to find a quick compromise.
And B’rer Fox, he lay low …
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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