Said Spencer Toth, who was Graham Platner’s organizing director, quoted in "Without Platner, Maine Democrats Scramble to Keep Grassroots Energy Alive/Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate imploded last week. The activists who backed him are seeking a candidate to carry his populist message in the race against Republican Susan Collins" (NYT).
***
My answer: "Yeah. I didn’t blog about it because I thought people would just be mean to that person who obviously didn’t belong there...."
The NYT doesn't discuss this person, Ashley Webb, but I can see that she was included in that special Democratic U.S. Senate debate. Originally, the debate was going to be limited to 4 candidates who had won at least 20% of the vote in the Democratic primaries for governor or U.S. House. When people complained about that they opened it to everyone who had filed a formal "intent to run." That was one part of the massive screwup that is ruining the Democrats’ chance to unseat Susan Collins. Laughing at Webb is low and beside the point.
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54 comments:
Laughing at Webb is easy but is on point because they represent the modern D party. Webb’s fate is obviously the fate of the D party until someone finds them a mirror and they do a little soul searching.
Another example of inserting the opinions/bias/persuasion into the headline to set the expectations before the first paragraph is read. So, Platner's followers 'love and trust' him, huh? Just not his backers? If he's so loved, then they should run him, rape allegations be hanged.
Mr. Webb's predilections are not 'beside the point', even if they invite unkindness. He's running for office and is not exempted from reasonable scrutiny about his capabilities, and should not be allowed that tender consideration. At least nobody's shooting him in the head.
Shenna Bellows is still the most likely candidate, IMO, for the 'Least Crazy, but still certifiable' crew.
My wife informs me now that shaming is under ban in polite modern society. But she can't tell me why. I think it's because it's so effective at correcting bad behavior; too effective. Heck, even a dog understands when it's being shamed.
Bring back the Nazi!
Bring him back.
Bring him back.
From the clip I saw, I found Ashley Webb to be the most sincere person on the debate stage.
Ashley Webb kind of looks like Meat Loaf.
Transgender? Homo or sim? Drag, perhaps.
Yep, the debate will be another Democrat circus with 5 or more people all fighting and talking over each other. The Presidental debates in 2020 were a clown show.
This is being done deliberately, so the populists cant rally around one good candidate and the establishment candidate will get the nod.
We shouldn't make fun of Webb if he were merely well-meaning but naive and childlike. But he's not just that, is he? No, he's running for senator. People have not only a right but a duty to examine his capacity to be good at the job and if some people are crude and unkind about it, that goes with the territory.
Politics ain't beanbag.
Platner should never have given up and backed out. He should have made the Democrat Establishment throw the election so everyone could see who and what they are.
Exempting Webb from any kind of ridicule is so Special Olympics. The root of "ridiculous" is "ridicule." Webb certainly qualifies for that adjective. On sure way he could avoid such ridicule is to stay home and not seek to represent the citizens of Maine. It works for all but a handful of Mainers.
Eric the Fruit Bat (10:04am):
Not only does "Ashley Webb kind of look{s} like Meat Loaf", s/he kind of looks like uncapitalized meat loaf, but paler and very unappetizing - really chunky.
"Love and trust" Platner? Any voter who did that after hia cavalcade of lies is someone wanting to fall in love, not elect a representative,.
If Dems had a better candidate than Platner to run in Maine they wouldn't have had the Platner problem to begin with and they wouldn't be in this position.
Platner was a sleazebag. It is simultaneously satisfying and disheartening to see Democrats holding him with the same esteem they lavish on their other sleazebags. Satisfying to have suspicions confirmed. Disheartening to consider the consequences for the country. Can the Dem trolls who post here name a single honorable Dem elected besides Fetterman?
Yeah, it was never about the bullet points, and kicking Platner out wasn't about the Nazi-Commie mashup or the sexual assault allegations. It was always about the polls, first the ones that claimed he had the potential to beat Collins, and then the ones that showed ehhh, not so much. The Democrat's problem with the current crop of dweebs is the difficulty building a fake narrative around any one of them while they are in the afterglow of Platner's implosion.
It would take a heart of stone not to laugh.
Ashley Webb is one of the faces of July, along with the Bison Guy at Yellowstone and the Canadian woman in New Jersey who faces deportation for overstaying her visa and then making the mistake of going viral for assaulting a teenaged girl wearing patriotic clothing on July 4th and drawing attention to herself. Although to be honest, it's not really the face of Bison Guy, but him being flung eight feet into the air by the angry bison.
"...low and beside the point. "
Have you looked at the last few political posts around here? It's all low and beside point. It's all deflection away from the core issues to anything else possible. I'm surprised there aren't a few hundred articles on Trump's unmanicured nails.
What are the values Democrats are fighting for?
Susan Collins has earned historic preservation status in the Senate from her constituents. We’re told she has to sometimes act like a Democrat to keep her seat but read that first sentence again. Really she’s convenient when the GOP doesn’t want to do what their constituents want. Notice how when there’s some important constructive legislation it doesn’t matter the GOPs advantage in the Senate- two three, four, well, gosh golly we gave it a try but we just came up one short on the things. Darn…
The Democratic definition of "honesty" seems to be "lying." Democrats don't speak English, but rather some strange creole created when progressives made contact with civilization.
Engaging in play by play and color commentary regarding fielding an opponent for Collins is harmless busy work for the dim witted…
By allowing any one who has filed to run on the debate stage, the Dems have allowed the most eccentric person to hoover up all the attention. That person has now become symbolic of the left in Maine. Well done.
Ashley Webb is a real person and a candidate for office who is unapologetically proud of herself and her personal expression of her gender.
Disappearing her is insulting to her and those like her.
rehajm said...
"Engaging in play by play and color commentary regarding fielding an opponent for Collins is harmless busy work for the dim witted…"
Glad you could join us.
What ability does Ashley Webb bring that you want in Congress?
No. We mock and ridicule people who are mentally ill and pretend they are not -- they are trying to be in a position of great power. Then we mock and ridicule those who allowed it.
If someone were to claim they were something they provably are not, what would that thing have to be for you to challenge them on it if they wanted your support and a job from you?
Mimes, minstrels, clowns, and fools deserve to be mocked.
Unicorn cultists, groomers, transurrectionists, frauds, and gender grifters, and Temo gender cosplayers deserve to be condemned.
He and his ilk are all of these.
He and his ilk deserve both.
So, "Rape allegations mar the reputation of local Nazi" flies right.
H/T Babylon Bee.
"... he was willing to speak to any issue directly and honestly..."
Sure--why doesn't he tell his voters who it was who forced him out of the race, how and why "they" did it, and what he got in return. Did he obtain any promises by the Dems to push for his "progressive" causes? Or did he just take the money?
That would be "direct and honest." What a fraud.
Progressive or [unqualified] monotonic.
"Laughing at Webb is low and beside the point."
Civility bullshit, anyone? Webb made herself a candidate and a public figure. And by doing so, she made herself fair game, in the same way that any other politico is. Her explanation for her candidacy was a joke, highlighting the deep unseriousness that the Dems insist on pretending is the opposite. Her whole show at the Dem event was just a ridiculous bit of theater, reflecting not only on her but on the Dems who have arranged this show (and for that reason was never "beside the point").
As for whether it's icky to make fun of the proponent of dumb political theater, it's certainly true that attacking someone for their physical condition or limitations is gross. But that doesn't exempt anyone from the consequences of their own stupid decisions -- or from how her audience watching how she played it as she asked for their political support might react to it. She asked to have people react to her obvious limitations as a candidate (and her cluelessness in asking anyone to take her performance seriously). Her candidacy and performance at the Dem-fest in Maine was a joke of which she made herself the butt. A joke gets what a joke deserves.
The only thing the insane cult left care about is harming people.
Harming Trump gives them collective hardons.
“Disappearing her is insulting to her and those like her.”
Quite seriously, so what?
She and those like her have no immunity. Neither does anyone else. I’m often repelled by people whose opinions I completely agree with.
"Quite seriously, so what?"
"“How victory may be produced for them out of the enemy's own tactics - that is what the multitude cannot comprehend.”
- Chinese guy.
Comprende, Mr. Multitude.
Soon it will be time for Platner to be like Milwaukee County Exec David Crowley and return to a race he’s left because of the clown show it’s become.
Ashley Webb is a transvestite man, not a woman. He lies when claims to be that which he is not. Is it necessary to force everyone to read and memorize "Gulliver's Travels"? So it appears. Those who support Yahoos are Yahoos themselves. Be wise. Be a Houyhnhnm.
“Disappearing her is insulting to her and those like her.“
“Disappear” is not a verb whose gerund form can have an object. Disappearing is done by, but not to, someone. Be that as it may, Webb has appeared, of his own volition, at a public scene for no clear purpose except to call attention to himself. It is not appropriate to laugh at him, or to take him seriously. He is a disturbed person, and the NYT is right to ignore him.
The best thing about Corporal Klinger was that he never insisted that he was a woman, only that he was too crazy for war, and the proof for his insanity was that he was a man who wore women's clothing. Imagine if that MASH company indulged in supporting his delusion by calling him Maxine and declaring that he was every bit the woman Hot Lips was and that he should sleep and shower in the women's quarters. It would be rightly divined that Klinger wasn't crazy, the entire MASH outfit was.
Some of us, including me, just like to talk about Mr. Webb, the typical Dem candidate. But being fair to him, I'll note that he selected "making hospitals pay for their mistakes" and "improving the road system" as his central planks. And , in fact, I have heard extensive criticism of Maine hospitals. They can't be fixed because they can't attract enough good people at the salaries the rural hospitals can afford. And serious mistakes are made. They are going bankrupt because so many people are on Medicaid which pats 2cents on athe dollar on hospital bills.
So he made some good poimts. Remember Webb the face of the Maine Democrat
"Disappearing is done by, but not to, someone.'
It's been used this way for quite a while.
See the Stalin/Yezhov photos which Blogger won't let me hotlink for some reason.
"I'll note that he selected "making hospitals pay for their mistakes" and "improving the road system" as his central planks."
Sounds like state issues. What does the US Senate have to do with that?
What is it about Democrats and their insane weirdness? We actually need a party in this country fighting for the poor and working class and fighting against "Malefactors of great wealth". And also being against supporting war criminals abroad and endless wars.
Instead we get the Democrats who want open borders and cant shut up about how they love Transgenders and hate icky white men. Morons!
You'll notice that because Roe v. Wade was overturned we've stopped having the D's talk non-stop about abortion and how much they love it and how everyone should get one. Because its so great!
*but I can see that she..*
HE! For the love of gawd.
HE. IS. A. MAN.
HE!!!!!
This is a weird topic for me because my mom's parents' surnames were Webb and Graham. Fortunately, they were far away from Maine.
"HE!!!!!"
“Can we get another car over here… He is having a breakdown.”
“SHEEEE!”
“JUST SAY THE RIGHT PRONOUNS!”
https://thompsonblog.co.uk/2026/07/a-test-of-patience.html
But Webb's presence made a huge statement- yet again- as to who and what the Democratic Party has become. Virtue signals that never end, and social commentary in the form of performances, even at the cost of their own acceptability as a functioning representative group.
I don't want to be "mean" to transgenders. I just want them to shut up about their mental illness and weird sexuality and keep out of public life.
We've gone down this slope before. Gays, y'see just wanted tolerance. Why was everyone so mean to them? Now, if you don't bake their wedding cakes you get punished.
It went from the love that dare not speak its name, to the love that wont shut up.
Transgenders are even worse. How many of these weirdos are their in society. 1 in 10000? Yet they all seem to be running for office, holding public office, or committing mass murder.
It used to be "Its nobodies business what goes on your in private bedroom". Now its everyone's business, whether we want to hear it or not.
How long before the foot fetish or S/M afficininados form a "Community" and start demanding tolerance and then approval? We already have NAMBLA.
"...it was never about the bullet points..."
It was about the pork.
“Disappearing her is insulting to her and those like her."
The soft bigotry of low expectations.
No mention that their "Grassroots energy" was cool with a rapist with a Nazi tattoo.
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