Douglas Rooks has been a Maine editor, columnist and reporter for 41 years. He welcomes comment at [email protected].

One thing is certain: Graham Platner sure gets under people’s skin.

The embattled U.S. Senate candidate who’s now getting international attention was confronted over the weekend with stories about unseemly texts, adding to the virtual archive of dubious internet postings unearthed since last October, just as Gov. Janet Mills entered the race.

The national Democrats who convinced Mills to run in the first place are now making clucking sounds concerning their hopes to “flip” — my least favorite political word — the Senate come November. A substantial swath of Maine punditry agrees, contending that the Good Ship Platner is taking on water and will sink either in next week’s primary or in November, after the Collins forces unleash $200 million or so in negative ads.

Let’s hold on, just a moment. We’ve been down this road before, particularly with Democrats. For those with long memories, presidential candidates Gary Hart in 1984 and Bill Clinton in 1992 faced allegations of extramarital affairs and inappropriate conduct. Clinton survived the campaign but later faced impeachment; Hart bowed out. Most recently Eric Swalwell, frontrunner for California governor, saw his campaign go up in smoke amid similar charges.

None of this is at issue in the latest Platner imbroglio. What happened was that his former
political director, Genevieve McDonald, who resigned last fall after the original spate of Reddit posts and “Nazi-themed” tattoo became public, talked about texts to the national media that the candidate’s wife, Amy Gertner, long ago told her in confidence. This is speech, not conduct.

There’s nothing really new here; we should stipulate that Graham Platner made hugely
irresponsible use of the internet. And let this be a lesson to all young people who have any
thought of future political (or professional) ambitions: Do not share your darkest and most intimate thoughts online, for they could become public and be used against you.

To explain the massive manhunt against a candidate who — as detractors point out — has never been elected to anything yet, we must dig a little deeper.

For Platner has displayed qualities that strike fear in the heart of establishment Democrats and Republicans. He’s a serious anti-war candidate linking the last two GOP presidents, from George W. Bush’s unjustified war in Iraq — in which Platner fought — through to Donald Trump’s inexplicable attacks on Iran.

Most Democrats are content to watch President Trump flounder. Platner calls these wars what they are: unprovoked aggression that would be strongly condemned by Americans if committed by another nation.

As to the future, Platner finally embodies what Democrats should have preached for decades: that working people should have the right to organize and form unions, a right they lost over decades as corporate and political interests successfully separated the national party from those it once represented.

After the post-World War II boom that saw productivity and real wages rising in concert, since the 1970s workers have made no significant gains, while all the benefits flowed right to the top — the 1%, or perhaps the 10%. These facts have been known for decades.

Up to now, though, Democrats responded to falling living standards primarily with subsidies, tax credits and checks. At the Legislature, there’s a program for almost every perceived need.

As Gov. Joe Brennan liked to say, though, the best path out of poverty is a good job. Those at the bottom want to work their way up, not get handouts from government. If jobs pay enough, that can happen again. Platner transmits these truths to his audiences with rough-hewn eloquence. It’s why his supporters span the political spectrum.

So too with healthcare and financial security. From Social Security with Franklin Roosevelt, Medicare and Medicaid with Lyndon Johnson and the Affordable Care Act with Barack Obama, it’s Democratic presidents who’ve led the way. But the ACA is crumbling, falling victim to the takeover by privatized corporate interests that claim a larger share of taxpayer dollars every year while cutting vital services like birthing wards and emergency rooms.

Platner is serious about this, too: We need a national system, directed and administered by the federal government — as in every other developed country on Earth. The time for half-measures is over.

It’s easy to see why billionaires, plutocrats, oligarchs, moguls — whatever your preferred term — are eager to see Platner defeated. His message threatens everything they’ve foisted on the rest of us for the past 45 years.

As long ago, when Margaret Chase Smith and Ed Muskie were national figures, Mainers again have important decisions before them that could be heard ’round the world. May we choose wisely.