U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner has hired Ben Chin as his new campaign manager, tapping the deputy director of the Maine People’s Alliance to right a campaign that has hit some hurdles after a fast start.

In a phone interview Friday night, Chin said that Platner asked him if he’d like to “take on all the most powerful people in the Democratic and Republican establishments.”

“What could be more fun to do than that?” Chin said.

Friday was Chin’s first day in the role, and he is stepping into a campaign that has been beset by staff departures that followed revelations about dozens of old Reddit posts in which Platner said he was a communist, stated that “all cops are bastards” and said that white, rural Americans “actually are” racist and stupid.

Platner also revealed last month that he had a tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol called a Totenkopf. He has said that he didn’t know the meaning of the tattoo until recently, and has since had it covered.

“Obviously, there have been the kind of hiccups that happen when you start trying to build a plane and then it turns into a rocketship,” Chin said. “There are things that we’re going to tighten up as we go, but the bones of this are what you see at these town halls.”

Platner has been drawing large crowds in appearances across the state, even in the wake of the controversies that have plagued his campaign.

“All the magical grassroots power that is making this campaign happen is alive and well,” Chin said.

Chin, originally from New York, is a Bates College alumnus who decided to stay in Lewiston after graduating to raise a family. He has worked for the Maine’s People Alliance, a progressive action group, since 2005.

He lost both the 2015 and 2017 Lewiston mayoral elections in contentious, high-profile runoffs.

The 2015 race made national headlines when an opposing voter displayed racist campaign signs.

Chin again made headlines when it was later discovered that a campaign worker had shared emails with his opponent.