Hi, everyone, it's Jensaki, and thanks so much for tuning in to episode four of The Blueprint.

This is a place where we want to have discussions about the party out of power, the rising stars,

the debates, and people's ideas, too. You're definitely going to want to have discussions about the party out of power, the rising stars, the debates, and

people's ideas, too. You're definitely going to want to stick around for my conversation with

Congresswoman Sarah McBride. That's coming up a little bit later. But first, I'm going to bring

back my old friend and political savant Liz Smith. There's a lot we're going to dig into

about what happened this week in politics.

Thank you. Smith. There's a lot we're going to dig into about what happened this week in politics. Okay, Liz Smith, we are in episode four. A lot has happened since we recorded our first episode

just a couple of weeks ago. I mean, in the world, because we're in a bit of a hellscape,

but also in the main Senate race. I mean, we were at the time, in our world, because we're in a bit of a hellscape, but also in the Maine Senate race.

I mean, we were at the time, in our first episode, we talked a lot about the Maine Senate race and the Oistraman, Graham Platner, right? The Oistraman. Now, the Oistraman is still very much in the race. He still had, he had about 800 people at a town hall on Monday night in Maine, but we've learned a lot about

him and things that he put on Reddit and also his tattoo over the last couple of weeks, including

this.

He referred to himself as a communist.

He said all police officers are bastards.

He downplayed sexual assault and made comments suggesting black people don't leave tips. That was on Reddit.

Then a couple days later, we learned that he had a tattoo, kind of a Nazi skull tattoo known

as a Totenkov, something he has since gotten covered up. And he's talked about this. He's

answered some questions about it. But that's a lot to

digest about a candidate. Yet, yet, here's the interesting thing. This is what I want to talk about it,

which is really do scandals matter and has the bar been raised for whether or not scandals actually

matter? Because in a poll that came out in the period of time between the Reddit posts and the Nazi skull tattoo, that's a lot, he was still up by 24 points in the race.

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