On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” MS NOW host Jonathan Capehart said that while Graham Platner shouldn’t have enjoyed support from Democrats as long as he did, the time it took for him to lose support doesn’t fundamentally undercut character arguments by Democrats “because we’re talking about one guy over a history of candidates where Democrats didn’t put those — the considerations they gave to Graham Platner into work.”
Co-host Geoff Bennett asked, “Democrats, for years, had pointed at Donald Trump and made the argument that character matters. Does the fact that so many Democrats were willing to stick with Graham Platner, does that undercut their argument fundamentally?”
Capehart responded, “No, it doesn’t, because we’re talking about one guy over a history of candidates where Democrats didn’t put those — the considerations they gave to Graham Platner into work. I look at it like this: What happened — what should have happened, finally happened. And when you look on the Republican side, and particularly with President Trump, who’s had similar accusations against him, including some court actions, and yet Republicans stuck by him. And so, I wonder if a lot of Democrats looked and thought, you know what, the guy in the Oval Office has got a lot of baggage, this guy has a lot of baggage, we’re going to hang in there. Should they have done it? No, they shouldn’t have. And the consequences of that, Maine and Maine Democrats are dealing with that now. But I hope that this is a lesson for candidates around the country, if you have skeletons in your closet, you better know what they are, and you better be truthful and forthcoming about what they are when people come to you and say you are the one, maybe you should be the person who says, you know what, I’m not, and maybe you should go talk to someone else.”
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