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In reply to the discussion: Graham Platner should have simple responses when hounded about sexting accusations [View all]Violet_Crumble
(36,432 posts)Thanks for your reply and the links btw. I live in a country with a different political system, so feel free to correct me if I do get anything wrong.
What you posted didn't show that he KNOWINGLY dated a Republican operative. The first link you posted was a damage control statement he made calling her a "lifelong GOP operative". That's not proof of what he knew when they were dating.
The next link gives a bit of a career history for her. Fair enough, but unless you were embedded inside their relationship (really hoping you weren't!), you can only assume what he knew. A job like hers would be described by many partners as a communications or even digital marketing role. Maybe if he went out with her to GOP dinners and planning sessions and stuff, that'd be different. And even then I'd be thinking what's the actual problem? Are people so pathetic that political candidates are dead to them if they dare date someone on the other political side of the aisle?
Also, I looked this up and there's no legal requirement for Senate candidates to disclose past relationships. There is for financial matters and conflict of interest, not personal history. So the claim that he has some explaining to do about who he dated is pretty feeble. I think Americans are already far too creepy and puritan like when it comes to judging the behaviour of other adults. If we can survive a Deputy Prime Minister who cheated on his wife with a staffer, was drunk most of the time, and who fell into a planter box outside a bar in Canberra. (Locals later stuck a bronze plaque on the planter, and a chalk outline of him lying on the ground, but his staffers kept on turning up and getting rid of it). Anyway, we can manage to exist with politicians, some of who have some stinky personal morals, and we just judge them on their performance as a pollie and leave the rest of it out of it. You all should as well.
So, no. Yr assumptions aren't him knowingly dating a GOP operative. They're just assumptions and from what I've read at DU, assumptions made with a heavy bias involved.