Mike the Mad Biologist

Again, I do not like either candidate, Mills or Platner, and I find it galling that Maine, with twice the population of D.C. and far more elected officials, which serves as a farm league system, cannot find a couple of good anti-filibuster Democratic candidates who are able to get on the ballot.

While Mills sucks because she is committed to keeping the senate filibuster, Platner’s Totenkopf tattoo opens him up to general election coverage like this:

There will be weeks of coverage like this, and it is tailor-made for the Right Wing Wurlitzer, which will then push it out into the mainstream. Democrats really do not want to be in the position of having to argue that he recently got rid of his Nazi tattoo. That is just asking for the Streisand Effect. Sure, nearly every Republican operative under forty is either a white Christian supremacist, a groyper, or extremely adjacent to one of those, but that will not matter: Republicans will still make these arguments.

This also is catnip for lazy and incompetent political reporters who will jump at the chance to ask other Democratic candidates, including those not in Maine, about the tattoo. It allows reporters to appear balanced, and it also breaks up the tedium (do not underestimate the roles boredom and the need for novel copy play in campaign coverage).

I hope I am wrong about this, but there are some real potential problems here.

In short, the Maine Democratic Party should be better than this, and D.C. still needs statehood.