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

“Extreme Makeover” is a brand of reality show that has succeeded both when applied to participants who needed to change their health habits, hygiene and clothing choices, as well as when applied to participants’ homes, which had disrepair or structural issues that needed fixing.

The programs “worked” because the premise is simple: People and domiciles — no matter how messed up — can change, can be made attractive and functional with the right amount of attention, care and craftsmanship.

Now comes a new offshoot: “Extremist Makeover.”

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

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The Democratic candidate for the United States Senate seat in Maine — currently occupied by perhaps the most moderate, intelligent, trusted, hard-working and admired senator on both sides of the aisle, Sen. Susan Collins — is going to be oysterman Graham Platner.

Platner is not a “liberal.” He’s not a “leftist.” He’s an extremist. Platner is from that land “beyond the fringe” in American politics that occasionally throws up onto the election beaches a candidate from the wacky left or wacky right after an intra-party primary campaign, a nominee who simply doesn’t play within the “10s,” much less the “40s,” of American political football.

The extremists luck out in the primary for a variety of oddball reasons, and then their parties pretend to be surprised when their oddball nominees get thumped in the general election.

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So, I predict, it will turn out with Mr. Platner, whose many, er, idiosyncrasies have been tumbling into public view for a couple of months now.

Platner’s most famous “eccentricity” thus far is his “Totenkopf” tattoo of the death’s head worn proudly during the Nazi era by Hitler’s Schutzstaffel (SS), particularly by the SS-Totenkopfverbaende, one of the original three branches of the SS, along with the Allgemeine SS and the Waffen SS. The SS-Totenkopfverbaende were guards at the concentration-extermination camps. Of many vile symbols of that regime, this is the equal of any of them when it comes to projecting evil purpose and deadly, arbitrary killing. Asking for that tattoo is a deliberate choice. Keeping it for years and years is another.

So, too, are the many Reddit posts Mr. Platner has made over his life, which cover the waterfront of bigotries and what we used to quaintly call “hate speech,” but which Democrats now call either “opportunities to grow,” or, more truthfully, auditions.

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Sen. Collins has faced leftist Democrats before in past elections. In her most recent campaign, in 2020, Democrats nominated the very left-wing Speaker of the Maine House, Sara Gideon. Despite being outspent by more than 2-to-1 (pro-Gideon spending was just shy of $48 million, while Collins’ war chest was $23 million) and being behind in nearly every single major poll from start to finish, Collins won her race by nine points, even though then-candidate Joe Biden beat President Donald Trump by the same margin. So nearly 20% of Mainers in 2020 switched from voting for a Democrat at the top of the ticket to a Republican on the next line in the Senate race.

That’s not just because Collins is genuinely liked and admired across Maine, which she is. Collins is also the powerful Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and thus in a position to help Mainers across the board, from every employee at Bath Iron Works, to every lobsterman or fisherman beset by ridiculous federal regulations, and every year-round Mainer beset by soaring heating costs in the winter because of Democrats obstructing pipeline permitting that would significantly lower the cost of getting energy to the Pine Tree State.

And it’s also not just because Collins is so widely respected that she is on the Senate’s Intelligence Committee, where only the most trusted senators from both parties serve, superintending the nation’s most secretive programs.

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It is also because Collins is a superb politician, always out and about across her state asking Mainers for their vote.

Collins is from “the County,” the enormous and farthest-north Aroostook County, which is as authentically Maine as one can get. Collins is also the equal of any example of a gracious and welcoming elected official who understands that the job of senator is to serve her constituents, not grandstand on far-left podcasts.

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

It’s rare to have a Susan Collins represent your state from positions of power and influence and do so with class and humility. To trade that in for a death’s skull and online bigotry doesn’t seem like a bet Mainers are going to make, no matter how many millions of dollars the Antifa-adjacent pour into the race from the far-left spread across the country.

Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor and host of “The Hugh Hewitt Show” heard weekday afternoons from 3 PM to 6 PM ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh drives Americans home on the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable, hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcasting. This column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.

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