General Discussion

Which is why I've always been a little "Eh . . ." about him. But given the party's major alternative would be a geriatric running for a first term after she managed a series of very corporate friendly actions (and boy howdy, those vetos) during her governorship, I get it. I think if I lived in Maine, I'd get Platner's appeal even more. Not merely populism, but just sheer frustration at politicians making choices they do not have to outside of what's good for their vested interests over what's good for the people.

He very well might implode. Absolutely. He's risky to say the least. But what really prompted me is the . . . let's just say pattern of names who went hard to bat for Cuomo and almost to the mat for Swalwell until that became virtually impossible who are now play-acting, "Verily, servant, fetch me the smelling salts!" over Platner. It's like people don't get the Internet is forever. I can see what you wrote in the past year about much worse people, y'all.

It's cynical pretense, and I just hate that shit.

Completely agree with you on Talarico. But you know what? Maybe it's a good thing our national party is mostly leaving it alone. Do we really want Newsom's interns bothering Texan voters? How would that play there? The people who run the national party - particular the ones who hang around social media all day every day - have proven themselves time and time again to have no idea what a normal voter looks like. They seem keyed into a terminally online perspective and no one else. Sometimes I wonder if they've even talked to someone who lives outside of Twitter or a city. It may redound to Talarico's benefit if they just let him do his thing without their "help." I've spent a little time in Texas, and they think people from Oklahoma are practically foreigners. Maybe the coastal consultant class should leave those plane tickets unused.

Your fifth point is where it gets interesting. Platner seems willing to be that type of politician. Maybe we should hang up our pearls for a moment and just let that ride. Especially, and I wrote a long post on this before, we're entering an age where a lot of people are going to have long social media histories that aren't going to be perfectly curated for political respectability.

We've been electing "respectable" people, and those people keep doing some not so respectable things in regards to policy and governing. I'm willing to give some people of ill-repute a shot if they're going to champion policies that help people on the ground. Barring criminality of course. We can and should draw a line there.

And this is, after all, the party that still holds Bill Clinton in some esteem. Acting like he wasn't a much worse mess back in the day - and still pretending he wasn't.

The hypocrisy is just too much to let slide without comment. It's like those people on the Right. Their pastor molests a school bus and they don't have much to say. But when a politician they dislike does something even a tenth as bad, suddenly they're in front of cameras, "As a Chreeestyan . . . ."

I don't enjoy it when we emulate that.