July 13, 2026
Joanna Klonsky--Platner’s Fall
Graham Platner steps down, allowing Dems in Maine to select another candidate to run against Senator Susan Collins. Ben riffs. Joanna Klonsky explains what Platner’s rise and fall says about the Democratic Party’s effort to break from centrists and find “real” people, who aren’t spineless, to run for office. How vetting works, or in this case, doesn’t work. The obsession with convincing white males to vote Democratic, even though they've been voting Republican since LBJ signed the Civil Rights Bill. And a few words about Platner’s enablers, who kept on spinning, even after he was accused of rape. Joanna is a political strategist in Chicago.