Probably, because there seems to be a lot more scrutiny of this guy’s behavior than a lot of other candidates and sitting politicians.

This doesn’t seem particularly accurate. On the Dems side, they’ve thrown out a lot of members for less (Al Franken screams to mind) and I can’t think of anyone who has had a Nazi tattoo… Platner’s getting hit in part because it’s his first campaign so he hasn’t been any similar scrutiny and sure, if you want to say the DNC elite are working with the media somehow but they’re unearthing the same stuff that’s going to come out in a general election, but it’ll be nastier and harder then.

It’s worth actually reading the article, there’s a lot there that makes me feel *really * uncomfortable. If I were voting in that election, I’d have to think really hard about whether I could in good conscience vote for him and whether that might be betraying who I am and the women in my life. And in a race as close as Maine is going to be (Not sure I would want to bet against Collins) this stuff can make the difference.

Some of the women also raised questions about his trustworthiness. Mr. Platner’s insistence that he did not know that his tattoo was a Nazi symbol until it became a campaign issue last fall was simply not true, Ms. Fifield said. After all, she said, he had taught her the word for it years earlier, referring to it as “my Totenkopf.”

Mr. Platner could be rough with her, Ms. Fifield said, particularly when they were drinking, leaving her shaken and sometimes afraid. In the interviews, Ms. Fifield grappled with how to process her experiences. She was quick to note that he “never hit me, he never punched me.”

But she said he regularly grabbed her by the shoulders — sometimes hard enough to leave marks — and, on one occasion, yanked her out of a cab by her wrist after an argument when she wanted to stay in the car.

During one argument, she recalled, he twisted her arm behind her back, shoved her into a bedroom and held the door closed from the other side so she couldn’t get out, telling her to remain there until she was “calm.”

If you think back to other candidates in their first campaign, a lot of crazy stuff comes out. (Remember Mark Robinson?) I’m not sure covering our ears is a good strategy. I’d much rather dig pretty hard so we know for danged sure nothing worse is coming out anytime soon. (What do we do if one of his exes alleges mental abuse? Physical?)

I dunno if this is disqualifying but as the party that’s supposed to be the good ones…