SULLIVAN, Maine — One of the most improbable stories in American politics began here: a short steep road ending at a stone boat ramp, and beyond it, the bright blue waters of Frenchman Bay.
The boat ramp is the business address of Graham Platner’s oyster company, only a few minutes’ walk from his home in this town of 1,200 people that hugs the Maine coast.
In this small place, nearly everyone knows Platner, and some also know Jenny Racicot, the woman who accused him of sexual assault, a revelation that helped sink Platner’s outsider campaign to unseat Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican incumbent.
Late Wednesday, in a video message suspending his campaign, Platner called the accusations “all false” and blamed his demise on the political establishment.
For people in Sullivan, Platner’s rise from local oyster farmer to electrifying political candidate drawing standing-room crowds was at first hard to believe, then surprisingly real. His abrupt fall leaves them pondering something else: what risks may come when entering the maelstrom of national politics, and what might be exposed along the way.
Greg Ring, 64, a landscaper and member of the Sullivan select board, remembered how Platner told him he was running for Senate before officially launching his campaign. Ring thought it was an odd choice for someone who wanted to start a family. “I don’t know why he’d want to put himself through this,” Ring said.
As Platner’s campaign accumulated controversies — including his tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol and alleged sexting with women other than his wife — he turned off some of his supporters. Separately, some of his old comments on Reddit rankled local fishermen, Ring said. (Platner wrote that most lobstermen were “solid folks,” but a few are “absolutely terrible people.”)
Now with the campaign at an end, Ring predicted that life would be quite different for Platner in Sullivan. In a big city, it would be difficult to distinguish “between the haters and the lovers,” Ring said. “But in a small town like this, you’ll notice.”
Sullivan is home to a Dollar General, a grocery, a Baptist church and a small art gallery. Platner and his wife, Amy Gertner, live in a modest blue clapboard house with a pitched roof on a rural road off Route 1, the scenic highway that runs up Maine’s coastline.
On Wednesday, Platner spent the day secluded inside with campaign aides as they considered his next step. A battered whaler was parked on the lawn, along with another small boat covered in tarp near a pile of stacked firewood.
An older woman in a Platner campaign T-shirt — “Voted most likely to start a revolution,” it said, a high school-era description of Platner — drove up and approached the front door. In her hand, she held a note sealed with a blue heart-shaped sticker. She left shortly after.
Bob Phillips, 85, has voted for Collins for as long as he can remember. But that was before his neighbor ran for office. The one who cleared a fallen tree from his driveway. The one who changed the blades on his lawn mower. The one who helped him move large pieces of furniture.
“I feel bad for him,” Phillips said of Platner. “Nobody’s talking about what kind of politics he’s fighting for. It’s all about him personally.”
Another neighbor in the area — a summer visitor to Maine for the past 35 years — said he knew Platner from his daily dog walks and fully endorsed Platner’s politics. Still, he was floored by the cascade of revelations during the campaign.
“Everything is going to be dug up, every little thing,” said the man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his privacy. Maybe Platner didn’t think his past would be picked over, he added. “But why would you expose yourself like that?”
Platner grew up in Sullivan and attended a private high school in nearby Bangor before enlisting in the Marines and serving multiple combat tours. He later returned home, encouraged by his mother, Leslie Harlow, who owns a restaurant in the neighboring town of Hancock.
On Tuesday evening, as her son’s political future hung in the balance, Harlow was at work, seating guests and delivering drinks during a busy dinner shift. One couple enfolded her in a hug when they saw her. Another woman offered a consoling squeeze on her arm.
Before he launched his campaign, Platner used to frequent a marine supply store in Sullivan. Sometimes he would come in with his shirt off, said Michelle Novak, who has worked there for years. She never noticed his tattoo. Novak, a Republican, said Wednesday that it was long past time for Platner to drop out.
“Even if I were a Democrat, I would tell him to stop running because he’s embarrassing the party,” she said. “Why would you want him to be your voice?”
At the Dunbar Store, a grocery just down the road, one of the deli sandwiches is named after Platner — the Graham: roast beef, pepper jack cheese, horseradish mayo, lettuce, onions, tomatoes, pickles and a dash of oil. Platner is a regular customer who used to supply the store with five dozen oysters a few times a week.
It’s also where Platner took Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) for lunch in late May, the two men and their teams sitting at folding tables in the wood-paneled corner store. Katie Nichols, 61, a store employee, remembers thinking that was when she realized Platner’s campaign was the real deal.
Now she’s trying to stay away from the torrent of news about Platner. Her impression of him is as a nice person and a good customer. “I want to keep it that way,” Nichols said Wednesday.
Her colleague Kayla Bryant, 38, said she found the recent allegations against Platner “disingenuous.” Politicians have “all gotten so old,” Bryant added. “We need younger, fresher blood.”
Bryant isn’t sure of everything she will say to Platner the next time he comes into the store. But she is sure of one thing: Bryant said she would tell him to run again.
The post In Graham Platner’s coastal Maine hometown, his fall is personal appeared first on Washington Post.
