HUGH HEWITT: Radical Graham Platner looks like an extremist gift to Susan Collins

“Extreme Makeover” is a reality show brand that is successful when applied both to participants who need to change their health habits, hygiene and clothing choices, and to participants’ homes that are in disrepair or have structural problems and need to be fixed.

The programs “worked” because the premise is simple: People and residences – no matter how messy – can be transformed, made attractive and functional with the right amount of attention, care and craftsmanship.

Now a new branch is coming: “Extremist Make-up.”

While not yet a reality show airing on a streaming platform, this reboot is far ahead in terms of development within the Democratic Party.

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The Democratic candidate for the United States Senate seat in Maine—currently occupied by Senator Susan Collins, perhaps the most moderate, intelligent, reliable, hard-working and admired senator on either side of the aisle—will be oysterman Graham Platner.

Platner is not a “liberal.” He is not a “leftist”. He is an extremist. Platner comes from a candidate who did not even play in the “10s”, much less the “40s” era of American political football, which is “beyond the limits” of American politics and occasionally throws a candidate from the crazy left or the crazy right onto the electoral shores after an intra-party primary campaign.

Extremists lose their chances in the primary for various strange reasons, and then their party acts surprised when their strange candidate is defeated in the general election.

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I predict that this will happen to Mr. Platner, many of whose characteristics have been in the public eye for several months.

Platner’s most famous “quirk” by far is his death’s head “Totenkopf” tattoo, which was proudly worn by Hitler’s Schutzstaffel (SS) during the Nazi period, especially the SS-Totenkopfverbaende, one of the original three branches of the SS along with the Allgemeine SS and Waffen SS. SS-Totenkopfverbaendes were guards in concentration extermination camps. This is the equivalent of any of this regime’s many vile symbols when it comes to malevolent projection and lethal, arbitrary killing. Wanting this tattoo is a deliberate choice. Keeping it for years is one thing.

So do the many Reddit posts Mr. Platner has made throughout his life, covering the fringes of bigotry and what we quaintly call “hate speech” but Democrats now call “growth opportunities,” or rather auditions.

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Senator Collins has faced left-wing Democrats in past elections. Democrats nominated Sara Gideon, the far-left speaker of the Maine House, in their most recent campaign in 2020. Despite outspending more than 2 to 1 (pro-Gideon spending was $48 million, Collins’ war chest was $23 million) and trailing in nearly every major poll throughout, Collins won her race by nine points, even though then-candidate Joe Biden beat President Donald Trump by the same margin. So in 2020, almost 20% of Mainers voted for the next-ranked Republican in the Senate race instead of voting for the Democrat at the top of the ticket.

That’s not just because Collins is truly loved and admired in Maine, and so is he. Collins is also the powerful chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, so she is in a position to help Mainers across the board, from every employee at Bath Iron Works to every lobsterman or fisherman beleaguered by ridiculous federal regulations and year after year Mainer besieged by rising heating costs in the winter because Democrats block pipeline permits that would significantly reduce the cost of providing energy to the Pine Tree State.

And it’s not just because she’s so respected that Collins sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is staffed by only the most trusted senators from both parties and oversees the nation’s most secretive programs.

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It’s also because Collins is an excellent politician and is seeking votes from Mainers all over the state.

Collins hails from “The County,” the huge, northernmost Aroostook County that is as authentic to Maine as it gets. Collins is also the equivalent of any example of a kind and welcoming elected official who understands that a senator’s job is to serve his or her constituents, not to grandstand on far-left podcasts.

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Collins and Platner couldn’t be more different. It’s possible that “normal” and welcoming Maine wants a radical, verbal bomb-throwing extremist as its next senator. But I don’t think so.

It is rare to have a Susan Collins who represents your state from positions of power and influence and does so with class and humility. Trading that for a skull and online bigotry doesn’t seem like a bet Mainers would make, no matter how many millions of dollars its Antifa neighbor pours into the race from the far left across the country.

Hugh Hewitt, Fox News contributor and “The Hugh Hewitt Show” weekday afternoons from 3 to 6 p.m. ET on the Salem Radio Network and simulcast on the Salem News Channel. Hugh takes Americans home to the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on more than 400 affiliates nationwide and on all streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest of Fox News Channel’s news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier on weekdays at 6 p.m. ET A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996, where he started his eponymous radio show in Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has appeared frequently on all major national news television networks, hosted television programs for PBS and MSNBC, written for all major American newspapers, and authored a dozen books. He has moderated multiple Republican candidate debates, most recently the 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in 2015-16. Hewitt focuses his radio show and column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians Today Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests, from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush.

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