I agree about the drunken marine on leave
However, I live in Germany. My father-in-law was Göring‘s „slob on a farm“ whose best hope in a war was „to come home in one piece.“ He was drafted off his farm at 17, sent to Stalingrad at 18, and returned home to his farm at 19. He was not in one piece. His fiery hate for the Nazis was personal.
My daughters went to elementary school here near Düsseldorf in a building that was the Gestapo headquarters during the war. The townspeople eventually renamed it the „Anne Frank Elementary School.“ So, here, people learn early what symbols represent.
I remember Jimmy Buffett‘s „Margaritaville“ and singing about his tattoo: „….a real beauty, a Mexican cutie, how it got there I haven‘t a clue.“ Someone like me might get it more so than a guy who had it on his chest, and only saw it in the mirror after a shower. You‘d think somebody would have recognized it and told him, but coastal Maine isn‘t Düsseldorf, so maybe not.
His running off at the mouth is serious, though. At least Gingrich was long out of office when he threatened to sue anyone who quoted what he had said the day before on the Sunday talk shows (!!!). Platner offered no such stunt, but his oddball utterances stretch over years. He‘d have to spend half his campaign time refuting them, and there are those minor matters of Trump, Putin, ICE, defense, the economy and foreign policy that do (or should) require any Senator‘s attention. If we don‘t need another Fetterman, we definitely don‘t need a Democratic version of Tommy Tuberville. For that matter, the Republicans seem to have decided that they don’t need their version of Tuberville, either. Whatever the real reason, and I‘m not convinced it‘s the shoo-in trip to the governor‘s mansion, he is not running for re-election.
Whether Maine’s nominee for Senate is Janet or not, it needs to be someone without embarrassing distractions that give the Republicans a free pass to point to them in oder to cover up the fact that the Republicans, themselves, „got nuthin‘“