The mad and bad Roman emperor, Caligula, made his horse a senator. So the scope for mad and bad political choices is wide. After winning the Democratic primary in Maine on Tuesday, essentially unopposed, Graham Platner is feeling his oats. And he might gallop all the way to the U.S. Senate in November, despite being manifestly unsuitable for the job. It would be a mad and bad decision by the Pine Tree State’s voters to send him there.

Some bad stuff about Platner has been well aired, so we can deal with it quickly here. He identifies with both Nazism and communism, frequents a sexual predator website, sexts women who are not his wife, has been denounced as a bully by past girlfriends, and has indulged a predilection for grotesque public vulgarity. But much still remains unknown about him that it would be good to find out. We don’t know what Platner said in his texts. Did women receive them willingly? How did they respond? How old — or young — were they? Was Platner a predator as well as a perv?