The Democrats are holding out for a hero in Maine
Singer Bonnie Tyler died at 75 on July 8. She had one of the most distinctive and instantly recognizable voices in pop music, with a rasp (the result of a vocal cord operation) that had the hint of desperation that gave her songs a built-in urgency. He most famous is probably “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” But another big hit was “Holding Out for a Hero,” which totally suited Tyler’s style. This video (which I’d never seen before) is a typically dramatic over-the-top 1980s effort, the visuals bordering on the ever-so-slightly kinky.
Enjoy:
RIP Bonnie Tyler.
Speaking of kinky male heroes, it reminds me of the dilemma facing the Democrat Party, one that Graham Platner’s candidacy spotlighted. Some people wonder why Platner was chosen in the first place to run for office, and pushed by certain factions who thought he’d be a good candidate. I think the answer isn’t obscure: he was their designated working-class hero. At least, he could be presented that way. Because it’s all about casting. And sometimes an actor has to be replaced while the play is still in production.
Democrats have lost many members of a demographic that used to be a goodly portion of their base: white, male, working class. They don’t need those votes in deep blue states or cities, and are free to run rich Communists with a foreign background such as Mamdani. But in purple ones and in nationwide elections it’s a riskier proposition, although it can still happen (see Michigan and El-Sayed; but Michigan has a particularly large Muslim voting bloc). But Democratss would very much like to have those white working-class men voting for them everywhere.
Thus, you had the nomination of the abominable Tim Walz as Harris’s VP. It was an effort that failed because Walz was a leftist’s idea of a masculine guy, but he fell very short of that and just came across as weird (a descriptor he used for J. D. Vance but that fit Walz far better).
Vance, by the way, really did start out as a white working-class guy – or even more poor than that – but rose higher by dint of brains and hard work.
Initially Platner must have seemed like a good solution to the problem. Male, “oyster farmer,” young, tattooed, veteran, Maine native, possessed of a rugged quality. A leftist who didn’t look like a leftist. For a while he polled quite well against Susan Collins, who is old and female and has been in office for a gazillion years. But Platner had a past, and the past wasn’t all that long ago.
Who chose Platner? Like most of these working-class heroes and foreign academic Communists, he was chosen by people whose specialty it is to find them and back them:
Welp… pic.twitter.com/e3TgHWaf9T
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) July 10, 2026
It’s about one of these “finders,” Daniel Moraff. The Times article said, “He looks for a particular type: military veterans with blue-collar jobs and no electoral experience but an interest in politics and (typically) labor unions.”
Next in line in Maine for the role seems to be Troy Jackson. The difference is that he really is from a working-class background and really was a logger, although he lacks a history of military service. He also has been a Maine politician for about twenty-five years and was the president of the Maine Senate. However, he’s got the usual political baggage, in his case that he was originally an abortion-opposing and same-sex-marriage-opposing Republican and switched both his party and his positions. There’s also this:
Jackson initially maintained a close political alliance with Platner, with the two frequently appearing at campaign rallies together and running in a ranked-choice voting alliance during the 2026 primary cycle. However, after multiple scandals involving Platner, including allegations that he raped a former girlfriend, Jackson has distanced himself from Platner.
On Israel, Jackson adheres to the requisite Democrat Party line:
“Anybody with eyes and a heart knows the Israeli government is committing genocide in Gaza. It has to end, and we as Americans have the power to end it.” Jackson added that he will “never vote in favor of US taxpayer-funded military aid to Israel” as a senator.
The article says that’s the first time he’s spoken much publicly about Israel, and it happened yesterday. Funny thing, that – he’s hopping on the bandwagon in an attempt to replace Platner. Jackson is also backed by Hasan Piker and Bernie Sanders. The same article helpfully lists the other contenders for the nomination as well, and mentions their attitudes on the Israel question. They exhibit different degrees of anti-Israel sentiment. But only one candidate seems to be supportive of the country, and that’s Shenna Bellows, the secretary of state of Maine.
One more thing about Troy Jackson – this allegation has emerged:
A progressive advocacy group on Tuesday accused former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson of striking a female colleague with a bottle he threw during a state Senate caucus dispute years ago, complicating his emergence as the leading Democrat contender to replace Graham Platner on the November ballot against Republican Sen. Susan Collins. …
In a post on X, the group said Jackson, “in a heated disagreement, struck a female colleague with a bottle he threw at her” during a caucus meeting when he served as Senate president, and it described the episode as “a widespread open secret” in Maine politics that was “not an isolated incident.”
The group conceded that people close to Jackson were denying the account.
The Democrats have until July 27 to make a decision. It will be the Party regulars of Maine who will choose Platner’s successor. They have an interesting task ahead – how to thread the needle.
[NOTE: If anyone’s interested in how it is that Platner can be on total disability from the service, here’s an article about that.]
We’ll take your beatings
We’ll all be your shills
Where are you Graham Platner?
Where is our Mainer song?
Where is our happy ending?
WHERE HAVE ALL OUR NAZIS GONE!?!
Because it’s all about casting. And sometimes an actor has to be replaced while the play is still in production.
Our political sphere is largely theatrics and it’s largely phony.
I’ve thought about this factor for many years. Ronald Reagan is quite interesting for a number of reasons. It was said at the beginning of his presidential ambitions that he was just an actor. A B-actor at that. But he did have a political track record, and it wasn’t just that he was the governor of CA. He had many formative political years before that.
From Wiki:
However, (& this is a big one) it really didn’t hurt that he a lot of acting experience under his belt. He had a great delivery and for whatever reason people tended to trust him. This resulted in his label “The Teflon President.” His opposition tried, unsuccessfully, to smear him.
Now a contrast: Consider the candidacy of John Edwards. A good looking and successful tort lawyer. I would say, a good looking, sleazy and dishonest, but successful, tort lawyer. To someone like a Daniel Moraff, this might look perfect. Someone who made a career out of lying his ass off, and winning in a tough environment (the courtroom). The Dem power elite loved Edwards until they didn’t. Because he got caught with his pants down. Rather like Graham Platner.
I’m the guy they’re talking about. Working class, been an electrician almost all of my working life, been a union member for more than 20 years, 9 year navy veteran. I wouldn’t say that the Democrats have lost all of the union members, but they’ve lost most of them that weren’t the true believer types. And they never had me at all. I’ve always referred to myself as IBEW Local xxx’s token libertarian. I don’t think they’ll ever get those guys back, either, especially as long as they keep trying to run candidates like they have so far. Walz was a laughingstock amongst the guys I work with.
“Because it’s all about casting.” neo
Bingo. Though men & women of integrity have always been rare.
Reagan “had a great delivery and for whatever reason people tended to trust him.” TommyJay
People sense when people speak from the heart. Reagan communicated sincere belief in what he said, a “say what you mean and mean what you say” ‘vibe’.
“It isn’t so much that liberals are ignorant. It’s just that they know so many things that aren’t so.” Ronald Reagan
But of course the adult liberals of his day were Kennedy democrats, who loved their country and truly were simply mistaken.
It was always hysterical that the Left thought the effeminate Tim Walz was any normal person’s idea of a manly man. I guess Platner was a reaction to the disastrous Walz choice. “OK, the effeminate weirdo didn’t work. Let’s go with the man with Nazi tattoo and drinking problem.”
The popularity of Bernie Sanders is a mystery to me. The man is a Communist, and appears to be rather a dim bulb. But people love him.
I always find it so ironic that the New Dems are sooo concerned about Gazans when all of the Arab countries in the region have had them live in their respective lands only to expel them after they got to know them better. This does not mean I endorse “genocide” of them. I just am puzzled that they are regarded in some circles as an honorable, even noble people. They’re not. “Gays for Palestine” indeed.
chazzand: “This does not mean I endorse “genocide” of them [Palestinians]”.
I don’t endorse genocide of them either. It’s a moot point though because it’s not close to happening. Yes Israelis are hitting them hard but they are targeting Hamas terrorist savages, not civilians. Palestinians are notorious for exaggerating civilian casualty numbers, not just 2 to 1 but 10 to 1 or even 100 to 1, eg the Jenin “massacre”. And the MFM, along with the UN and the international left now including the entire Dem party in the US eats it up with little or usually no skepticism because they are on their side.
In reality Israel cares more about the lives of Palestinian civilians, even if only because of bad PR, than their own leaders do whose policy for decades has been to put Palestinian civilians in harm’s way for that exact reason.
Well said, neo, and chad too. The whole nauseating Platner episode shows just how badly Democrats have lost the plot. Trump rose to power by stealing their base. His two bedrock issues, trade and immigration, took the positions held for decades by the industrial labor unions that used to be the core of the Dem coalition. Now they have become so disconnected from that base that their idea of a “working class hero” is a guy with a Nazi tattoo who abuses women. Not far from Obama’s “bitter clingers” come to think of it.
They took them for granted and thought they could win with the support of racial minorities and urban hipsters. But now the minorities are ditching them too because they are not really thrilled with LGBTQWERTY or defunding the police. They’ve got the nose ring crowd locked up though.
For more on this read some Ruy Teixeira – if you can find him. Teixeira is a Dem political analyst who co-wrote a book in the early 2000s, “The Emerging Democratic Majority”. He predicted that Democrats would ride a tide of growing minorities and young tech workers in blue cities to retake the Presidency that had been dominated by Republicans since Nixon. It seemed to come true with Obama but then Trump confounded everyone. Teixeira soon understood what happened and has been sounding the alarm to Dems since then, but they don’t want to hear it. His interesting blog, “The Liberal Patriot” has folded, apparently the title is now officially oxymoronic.
FOAF
I probably did a poor job explaining my feelings with that statement. I wrote in anticipation of being accused of advocating “genocide” by the usual suspects if I don’t demand immediate withdrawal. I am satisfied the Israelis are doing the best they can under difficult circumstances. The quotation marks were meant to indicate sarcasm. My fault.
Birds of a feather…
——
Graham Platner strategist who recruited disgraced Senate candidate also an accused sex pest
One half of the champagne socialist duo who recruited and failed to properly vet accused rapist Graham Platner was reportedly booted from a previous congressional campaign due to sexual misconduct accusations from at least three women.
Yale Law-educated Daniel Moraff, 31, the grandson of one of the Toys “R” Us founders, worked on the campaign to elect far-left “Squad” Rep. Summer Lee to Congress in Pennsylvania in 2022, after leading efforts to recruit her a few years before to run in state politics in Pittsburgh.
More here:
https://nypost.com/2026/07/11/us-news/graham-platner-strategist-who-recruited-failed-senate-candidate-is-an-accused-sex-pest/