I’m a Maine reporter who went to high school with Graham Platner. Here’s what explains his success
In 2002, my classmate Graham Platner ran for student-body president of John Bapst Memorial High School in Bangor. I remember watching him in our auditorium debate his fellow candidates. He was the radical, wearing a revolutionary proletarian costume: overalls and a red armband. (When I asked him about this recently, he told me he thought he had a history presentation to give that day.) I don’t recall the issues they discussed, but I do remember Platner proposing collective action to overturn some school policy — saying something along the lines of, “They can’t suspend us all.” The history teacher serving as moderator interjected to remind Platner and everyone else that, yes, in fact, they could.
Students elected the safe candidate, a future chiropractor. But Platner had other outlets for his energy and ideas. Around that time, he skipped school to protest the coming Iraq war when President George W. Bush visited our local airport — and was forcibly removed by the Secret Service. In the high school yearbook, our class voted him “most likely to start a revolution.”
Nearly a quarter-century later, Platner, now 41, is not just the probable Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat held by Republican Sen. Susan Collins; he’s arguably the most remarkable political story anywhere in the country.
Read this story by Josh Keefe
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