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Sullivan oyster farmer and U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner will soon join a small list of Mainers who have appeared on the cover of Time.
On Thursday, the magazine published online its profile of Platner, the 41-year-old Marine veteran and Democrat who will almost certainly face U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in November. Gov. Janet Mills dropped out of the Democratic primary last month, and Brunswick Democrat David Costello has struggled to gain traction with a quieter campaign.
The piece by Time senior correspondent Julia Terruso, titled “Inside Graham Platner’s Controversial Rise,” is the latest profile from a national publication to delve largely into Platner’s biography while detailing how he has navigated various controversies that range from his now-covered tattoo of a Nazi-like symbol to old Reddit posts.
The magazine also posted a photo of the cover of its upcoming June 8 issue that featured a shot by Maine-based photographer Greta Rybus of Platner with the headline, “Party Crasher: The rise of scandal-plagued Democrat Graham Platner.”
Platner is in rare company in terms of Mainers who have graced the cover of Time, which was first published in 1923. Former U.S. Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, the Republican from Skowhegan who was the first woman to serve in both chambers of Congress, was on the front of Time in 1950 as a “Woman of the Year,” and again in 1960 alongside Rumford Democrat Lucia Cormier. Cormier was a state lawmaker who lost her bid to unseat Chase Smith that year in the first Senate election in U.S. history to feature two women as major party nominees.
Former Gov. and U.S. Sen. Ed Muskie, the Rumford native who was Democratic presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey’s running mate in 1968, appeared with Humphrey on a Time cover that same year. Muskie appeared again in 1971 on a Time cover that billed him as the “Front Runner for ’72,” though Muskie would go on to have a disappointing 1972 primary defeat. Muskie then graced the Time cover a third time in 1980 as what the magazine called President Jimmy Carter’s “surprise” pick to serve as secretary of state.
Other Maine figures, including Collins in 2019, have been the focus of Time features inside the magazine over the years. A University of Maine alumna, Jill Pelto, also had her climate change-focused artwork featured on the cover in 2020, though Pelto grew up in Massachusetts.
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