Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner’s finance director resigned Friday, the third departure from the scandal-plagued campaign in the past two weeks.
“I joined this campaign because I believed in building something different,” Ronald Holmes wrote in a LinkedIn post. “Somewhere along the way, I began to feel that my professional standards as a campaign professional no longer fully aligned with those of the campaign.”
Platner’s campaign has been mired in nonstop controversy since reports broke of social media posts in which he said that “all” cops are bastards, called white rural Americans racist and stupid, called himself a communist, asked why black people “don’t tip,” and advised people concerned about sexual assault to “take some responsibility for themselves and not get so fucked up.” Platner later confessed to having a tattoo of a Nazi symbol, which he has since covered up.
The Washington Free Beacon also reported this month that Platner, who describes himself as a “working-class Mainer” and boasts the endorsement of socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), attended an elite Connecticut boarding school and is the grandson of a world-famous architect who designed $20,000 chairs. He has since told MSNBC that he has “lived a fairly simple life” and has “never been close to money and power.”
Advisers have fled the Platner campaign amid the controversies. This week Platner’s campaign manager left after just three days on the job, citing his wife’s pregnancy. Earlier this month, Platner’s political director resigned, telling Politico that she refused $15,000 from the campaign to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
Sanders, one of Platner’s most prominent backers, has stood by the candidate.
“I am not overly impressed by a squad of media running around, saying, ‘What do you think about the tattoo on Graham Platner’s chest?'” Sanders told Axios. “Between you and me, there might be one or two more important issues.”
Other officeholders disagree with Sanders’s attempt to downplay the controversy.
“This is a man who criticized and mocked police, rural Americans, and then put a Nazi tattoo on his body,” Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D., Mass.) said of Platner. “I think we should have high standards for United States senators, and one of them is you don’t have a Nazi tattoo on your body.”
