Froma Harrop

Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna conceded at a rally for the Maine senatorial candidate that Graham Platner’s actions have not been sterling. Voters considering Platner don’t like his “shameful” actions against women, the Californian said, but “they are willing to extend him grace and redemption.”

Maine Democrats have just chosen Platner to challenge five-term Republican Susan Collins in November. Maine is a purple state, and Collins is a moderate by current Republican standards.

But here’s the problem for Platner:

Redemption is a theme in religion whereby someone who has committed wrongs accepts responsibility and changes. The work of redemption can take years, and time is not Platner’s friend. One doesn’t simply stand up after years of misbehavior and announce, “I declare myself redeemed.”

Khanna also said about Platner, “He understood that those years that he came back were not the best years of his life.” Unfortunately, the not-best years include this year.

Realistic voters understand that humans who have failed moral tests can turn themselves around. Everyone has a past. But Platner’s past is the present, present as in this month.

Still floating around is a selfie Platner placed on Kik of himself posing bare torso, in a towel. Kik is an app that men frequently use to find women other than their wives without being identified.

Platner used it to exchange sexually explicit messages with several women. His Kik account remained active even as he was vying for the nomination. The shirtless photo was removed less than two weeks ago.

Some Democrats are praying for a way to replace Platner on the ballot. They have until mid-July to do it, but that would require Platner’s voluntarily dropping out of the race. Nothing in his history suggests that he would sacrifice national importance for the good of the party – or given the stakes, the good of the country.

Platner now claims to have suffered PTSD from his time as a Marine in combat. However, he dismissed post-traumatic stress disorder as an excuse for “garbage behavior” in a 2020 Reddit post.

PTSD is a real thing, and there is treatment for it. But if Platner couldn’t pull himself together in a marriage not yet three years old, how would he do in the Senate? The late Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Bob Dole of Kansas both suffered terrible wounds in war, but they didn’t physically take it out on women.

Khanna concludes that Platner has “worked to be a better man, a better human being.”