senate race scandals defined
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2026A certain amount of happy talk on James Talarico, which gets undermined in the same breath with a “makes it a race” — fighting chance. Or, where everyone was before — Beto O’Rourke, that football guy in 2024. And unlike them who were behind in every poll you ever saw, he leads in the polls. The Republicans have an effective and tried and true strategy though: just say that he’s gay. Or, Vegan, which is the same difference. See, this way when he floats any shot of him eating meat they can claim he’s hiding it, a sign of desperation! And then float out a tweet celebrating the “first trans candidate” — can’t argue against that without alienating the trans, right?
For his part, we see the problem with the latest Republican “take down the establishment” — Paxton. Amuse yourself with the divorce proceedings by the divorce proceedings — “biblical grounds” — ha ha — I don’t really see how anyone cares, even if it’s politically convenient now-off is amusing. The problem when bringing up his record, the things that had the Texas legislator impeach him, and a record of scandal is in the litany — everyone skips right past “election denier” and a lead role in conspiracy hunting on January 6 — no more a scandal, an assumption.
Definitions for what get defined as “scandal” get fuzzy. Graham Platner of Maine — sordid past and all, but I take a kind of “meh” on the latest, even as it appears to drop one hell of a drop in female support in the polls. The circumstances of the latest are a little curious — he brought up his sexting images and infidelity to his wife, oh — oh, five minutes before he decided to run for Senate — a campaign staffer who is disenchanted with Platner dropped it into the ether just now. A semi-scandalous detail — I guess? — on these oh so hot dating app photo is he covers up his Nazi tattoo — I am not sure what that detail is supposed to suggest, even before he was aware of the genesis of the image it is by now a thing that he realises that it is not so bad-ass looking to the chicks he is trying to attract and cheat on. There is a bunch of commentary on Platner I am annoyed with — the consultant pundit Cilizza chimes in that what he’s want from a Platner is to jump in to a state legislator race and go from there. A couple problems with the assumptions baked into the proclamation — we are in a “Schumer cleared the field for an 80 year old career politico, an older version of people who have gone down to Collins in the past” — where is the more liberal and younger state legislator barn-storming the state for this primary? Also you lose years by that deed and the generation gap decreases.
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