Another T disaster | Platner's union allies soured on him before rape accusation | Former state transpo chief oversees troubled travel plaza bidding | Lawsuit threatens Boston finances | Quick Hits |
News tips? Story ideas? News tips? Story ideas? Email us at sbvanvoorhis@contrarianboston.com, or sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com
Early warning signs: Months before the sexting and rape allegations, Graham Platner’s transformation into a Bernie Sanders acolyte had raised concerns among some of his top labor supporters
For many supporters of Graham Platner’s Senate campaign, the latest sordid revelation about the bearded and burly oysterman’s troubled past was the last straw.
The Maine Democrat is now reportedly preparing to exit the race following Politico’s report on Monday that a former girlfriend has accused a drunken Platner of barging into her home one night five years ago and raping her.
However, one of the nation’s largest construction trades unions quietly soured on Platner months ago, despite having played a crucial role in getting his Senate campaign off the ground, Contrarian Boston can reveal.
Construction trade unions and organizations helped staff phone banks, collect signatures, and do other crucial work, while pumping tens of thousands of dollars in contributions into Platner’s campaign coffers.
At a time of voter frustration with rising costs and the political status quo, the rough-around-the-edges Marine combat veteran appeared to be a promising candidate to take on long-time Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins.
By spring, Platner emerged as the front-runner in the Democratic primary in a Senate contest that had gained national attention amid a national battle for control of the chamber in the upcoming midterm elections.
Yet behind the scenes, concerns were mounting among his construction union backers about Platner’s waffling and lack of any clear position on data center expansion and nuclear power.
The IBEW and other building trades unions are dead set against state moratoriums on new data centers, with these multibillion-dollar projects having become a leading source of new jobs.
Yet in a mid-May interview with industry publication Heatmap, Platner stopped just shy of endorsing a data center moratorium, saying that he was open to “anything” that would slow the development of data centers.
And the Maine Senate candidate said he had no reservations at all about a data center moratorium during a meeting in early March with environmental groups.
Here’s from that Heatmap story:
“During a March 6 interview with environmental activists considering whether to endorse the candidate, Platner was asked whether he supports a “halt” to the fast-paced buildout of data centers. He was also queried on whether he would cosponsor legislation authored by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that would temporarily ban new data center projects. (The interview occurred before the bill was introduced.)
‘Yes and yes. That’s probably the easiest question I’m going to get asked today,’ Platner replied, according to a recording of the internal conversation shared with me by Food and Water Action.”
At their own meeting late last month with Platner, IBEW officials laid out their concerns about the candidate’s silence on nuclear power and lack of a clear position on data centers, officials said.
The union officials told Platner that the environmental groups that have become major supporters of his campaign are also the leading opponents of new power plants, transmission lines, and data center projects that the union’s members work on, IBEW Second District International Vice President Michael Monahan told Contrarian Boston.
“His supporters are against rate increases to improve the grid, want to take the privately owned utility to a public state-owned utility, and anti-data center,” Monahan said.
Some building trade union leaders have also been none too happy with the politically inexperienced Platner’s emergence as a Bernie Sanders acolyte over the course of the campaign.
Sure, Platner’s workingman vibe was certainly an attraction. But some top union leaders were clearly hoping that the Marine combat veteran and oysterman, whose only previous stint in public office was serving on a local planning board, would be more of a centrist politically.
When they first met Platner, he portrayed himself as a middle-of-the-road person politically with a blue-collar background in the mold of a Joe Manchin or a John Fetterman, IBEW officials said.
But after Bernie Sanders became a big part of the campaign, Platner shifted sharply to the left.
“Our members had cooled down on his candidacy due to his social issues and silence while his supporters were so committed on issues that hurt our members in construction and utility,” Monahan said.
Now Platner’s Senate campaign is all but over in the wake of a rape allegation by a 41-year-old Maine woman, Jenny Racicot, who spoke on the record with Politico, which also reviewed emails she exchanged with her therapist and messages to an acquaintance warning her away from Platner.
Here’s from the Politico story:
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner, who is now the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.
The only question now is the timing of Platner’s announcement that he is withdrawing from the race.
Another T disaster in the works: The MBTA’s plan to replace 1940s-era Mattapan trolleys is hundreds of millions of dollars over budget and years away, if ever, from completion
By Colman M. Herman
Now here’s a shocker: The MBTA’s plan to upgrade the archaic Mattapan Trolley Line has devolved into what else, an epic mess.
