HUGH HEWITT: Radical Graham Platner looks like an extreme gift to Susan Collins
NEWNow you can listen to Fox News articles!
“Extreme Makeover” is a reality show brand that has been successful both when used on participants who had to change their health habits, hygiene and clothing choices, and when used on participants’ homes, which had unfixed or structural problems that needed fixing.
The programs “worked” because the premise is simple: People and habitats – no matter how wasted – can be changed, made attractive and functional with proper attention, care and creativity.
Now a new offshoot is emerging: “Strong Change.”
Although not yet a reality show on the airwaves, this reboot has gained momentum within the Democratic Party.
MICHIGAN DEM REP REFUSES TO ENDORSE MUSICIAN AFTER RAPING REVIEWS
The Democratic candidate for the United States Senate seat in Maine – currently the most moderate, intelligent, trusted, hardworking and respected senator on both sides of the aisle, Sen. Susan Collins – will be oysterman Graham Platner.
Platner is not a “liberal.” He is not “leftist.” You are an extreme person. Platner comes from that country “beyond the edge” of American politics that occasionally throws a left-wing or intelligent person to the shores of the election after the party’s main campaign, a candidate who does not play within the “10s,” let alone the “40s,” of American political football.
The insurgents have won the primaries for a variety of strange reasons, and their parties pretend to be surprised when their stronghold nominees are defeated in the national elections.
SUSAN COLLINS FAILS TO ATTACK DEMOCRATS AND TRUMP, SAYS MAINE VOTERS ‘DON VOTE PARTY LINE’
Therefore, I predict, it will appear about Mr. Platner, many of his, er, idiosyncrasies have been falling into the public eye for several months now.
Platner’s most famous “eccentricity” by far is his “Totenkopf” death’s head tattoo that was proudly worn during the Nazi era by Hitler’s Schutzstaffel (SS), specifically the SS-Totenkopfverbaende, one of the three original branches of the SS, as well as the Allgemeine SS and the Waffen SS. The SS-Totenkopfverbaende were concentration camp guards. Of the many evil images of that empire, this is equal to any of them when it comes to revealing evil intent and deadly, senseless murder. Asking for that tattoo is a deliberate choice. Maintaining it for years and years is another.
So, again, there are many Reddit posts Mr. Platner has done in his life, including the racist waterfront and what we used to call “hate speech,” but now Democrats call “opportunities for growth,” or, in fact, testing.
DAVID MARCUS: CAN CLASSIC DEMOCRATS BE LONGER PLEASE?
Sen. Collins has run afoul of left-leaning Democrats before in the last election. In his latest campaign, in 2020, the Democrats nominated Speaker of the Maine House, Sara Gideon. Despite being outspent 2-to-1 (Gideon’s spending was $48 million, while Collins’ campaign was $23 million) and trailing in almost every major poll from start to finish, Collins won his race by nine points, even though candidate Joe Biden beat President Donald Trump by the same margin. So about 20% of Mainers in 2020 went 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 that Collins is loved and genuinely loved throughout Maine, which he is. Collins is also the powerful Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, and thus he is in a position to help the Administration across the board, from all the workers of the Bath Iron Works, to all the fishermen or fishermen who are burdened by ridiculous federal laws, and every year Mainer is burdened by the increase in the cost of heating in the winter because the Democrats interfere with the pipeline that allows the Pine to reduce the costs of the Tree State.
And it’s not just that Collins is so respected that he’s on the Senate Intelligence Committee, where only the most trusted senators from both parties serve, overseeing the nation’s most secret programs.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW MORE FOX NEWS
That’s because Collins is a top-notch politician, who regularly goes around his district asking Mainers for their vote.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, leaves the room at the Capitol in Washington, July 24, 2025. Collins is from ‘The State,’ the largest and farthest north of Aroostook County, which is as authentically Maine as one can get. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)
Collins is from “The State,” the largest and most remote county north of Aroostook, which is as authentic Maine as one can get. Collins also fits any example of a gracious and welcoming elected official who understands that a senator’s job is to serve his constituents, not grandstand on left-wing podcasts.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS PROGRAM
Collins and Platner couldn’t be more different. It’s possible that “normal” and accepting Maine is looking for a bigoted, bombastic person as its next senator. But I don’t think so.
It is rare for Susan Collins to represent your country from positions of power and influence and do so with class and humility. Trading that for a death skull and online bigotry doesn’t seem like a bet they’ll make, no matter how much antifa nearby pours into the far-left race across the country.
Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor and host of “The Hugh Hewitt Show“I heard it weekday afternoons from 3 PM to 6 PM ET on the Salem Radio Network, and it was simulcast on the Salem News Channel. Hugh calls Americans home on the East Coast and lunch on the West Coast to more than 400 embassies across the country, and on every broadcast platform where SNC can be seen. He is a regular guest on Fox News Channel on the Brett news program at 6 pm. Ohio and degrees from 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 is a regular in all major national television programs, MSN has written for MSN’s television writers. of television, MSN has also written for MSN television writers and moderated Republican debate scores, most recently the November 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 on and tens of thousands of Trump Republicans and Donald Bush’s 40 years in broadcasting.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM HUGH HEWITT
