Platner Reddit posts and Nazi tattoo should’ve prompted earlier exit: Strategist
Graham Platner, a former Democratic Senate candidate in Maine, faced multiple scandals, including sexts, allegations of physical aggression, controversial Reddit posts, and a Nazi-linked tattoo, which contributed to his campaign’s downfall. Teh lead strategist for Platner’s campaign later reflected that deeper vetting could have revealed these issues earlier, suggesting that the Reddit posts, the tattoo, and troubling behavior reports should have been red lines leading to withdrawal sooner. Despite concerns about the recent sexual assault allegation that ended the race, strategist Morris Katz argued no vetting process could have uncovered this credible claim beforehand. Katz also addressed internal team dynamics and expressed frustration over privacy violations and perceptions of how the campaign was managed, emphasizing that Platner was chosen after an extensive process and that he personally believes in more nuanced, honest politics.
The lead strategist for former Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner said the campaign made strategic mistakes, weeks after he dropped out of the Maine race due to a rape allegation.
Platner suspended his campaign on July 8 following a Politico report in which an ex-girlfriend alleged he raped her. Prior to that allegation, Platner stayed in the race for months, amid a range of scandals. They included sexts he apologized for, saying he had worked it out with his wife; allegations reported by the New York Times that he was physically aggressive with several ex-girlfriends, which he denied; a barrage of controversial Reddit posts from years ago he said were made during struggles with PTSD following combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan; and and a Nazi-linked tattoo, which he claimed to have gotten nearly two decades ago during a drunken spree without knowing its meaning. Ex-girlfriend Lyndsey Fifield has claimed Platner knew the tattoo’s meaning, saying he would “joke about it being a Nazi tattoo” and “call it my Totenkopf.”
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In an interview with the New York Times’ Ezra Klein released Friday, chief Platner strategist Morris Katz said that, looking back, the Democratic candidate should have suspended his campaign far earlier.
“In hindsight, knowing what we know now, the Reddit posts alone probably should have been enough — or should have been enough,” Katz said during an appearance on The Ezra Klein Show. “The tattoo should have been enough. The initial New York Times story on troubling behavior should have been enough.”
Still, Katz fended off concerns that Platner’s team had knowledge of the final sexual assault accusation from Jenny Racicot that ended his campaign, pointing to Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), who he said served on the House intelligence committee for about a decade before he “then saw similar allegations end his campaign” for California governor.
“The conversation around the vetting — there is no standard vetting process that would have found the credible allegation that ended the campaign,” Katz said.
Katz is a strategist at the political consulting firm Fight Agency and was the ad maker for Sen. John Fetterman’s (D-PA) 2022 campaign, and a key political adviser to New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, before coming on as Platner’s lead strategist.
Though he touted Platner as an outsider, Katz pushed back against the narrative that he was plucked from obscurity. There was an “extended process” and at least 30 meetings to select him, he said, adding that the Maine state Senate tried to recruit Platner to run in 2020, after “a number of people had reached out over the years, saying: ‘You should run for office.’”
He said that after strategists picked Platner as their ideal candidate, there was a vetting process, in which they found many of the Reddit posts he made years ago. Katz was asked about a 2013 post Platner made, in which he suggested people who are sexually assaulted should “take some responsibility for themselves and not get so [expletive] up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to?”
Katz said he now believes that post should have a “red line.”
“The challenge of all of this was — as someone who does deeply believe in grace and nuance and the fact that people are complicated and life is complicated and maybe politics should reflect a little bit more of that — there was a constant weighing of: How much is too much? What is the red line?” he said. “And I think, obviously, I did not see it soon enough.”
Katz was also pressed on whether he would apologize to Genevieve McDonald, who was the campaign’s political director before she quit in October, for allegedly slamming her for talking to the media about Platner’s cheating. He declined to do so, arguing he felt McDonald’s comments violated the privacy of Platner’s wife, Amy, who stood by him throughout the scandals.
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“To see Amy’s trust violated like that, and to see that practice that allows campaigns to operate and us to get to a place of honesty violated like that, was frustrating,” he said.
“I take the work that I do very personally and may be naïve at times in the sense of wanting a different kind of politics to be possible,” Katz added.
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