http://www.politico.com/magazine/st...maine-governor-crazy-101923.html#.UtLde5co5dh
What better way to start a governorship than to refuse to attend a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day breakfast and, when the NAACP complains, tell them, on camera, to “kiss my butt”?
That’s how Maine’s governor, Paul LePage, introduced himself to the nation three years ago, and the Republican Tea Party favorite quickly followed up with a series of intemperate remarks and questionable actions that arguably garnered him more negative national media attention than any Maine politician since Sen. James G. Blaine, the so-called “continental liar from the State of Maine” whose 1884 presidential run was derailed by graft and corruption charges.
LePage’s first major initiatives as governor—to roll back all state environmental laws to weaker federal standards and stop a ban on bisphenol A (BPA), an endocrine disruptor, in baby bottles—were drafted by his special adviser, a registered lobbyist for many of the affected industries. LePage defended the restoration of BPA in bottles by saying, with a smirk, that the worst that could happen was that “some women may have little beards.” Even as that effort collapsed, crowds of protesters were on the steps of the statehouse condemning LePage’s removal of a mural illustrating the history of Maine’s labor movement from the Department of Labor because an anonymous letter writer had likened it to North Korean efforts to “brainwash the masses.”
And that was just his first 100 days. LePage has since threatened to move his office out of the statehouse (over a dispute involving a television used to promote his policies in a public space), refused for months to allow his commissioners to testify before legislative committees and ordered state employees not to speak to the state’s largest newspaper chain (a move that earned national attention but went unimplemented).
He is skeptical of wind power—and sabotaged a $120 million offshore wind investment by Norwegian energy giant Statoil last year—perhaps in part because of a declared belief that some turbines “have a little electric motor that turns the blades [when the wind isn’t blowing] … so that they can show people wind power works.” A champion of charter schools and voucher initiatives, he has advised students: “If you want a good education, go to private schools. If you can’t afford it, tough luck. You can go to the public school.”
As for President Barack Obama, LePage said on the campaign trail that the president could “go to hell” and reportedly told supporters at a private fundraiser that Obama “hates white people,” a remark LePage later apologized for, even as—in a feat of gymnastic oratory—he declined to confirm or deny having said it.
In June, LePage denounced a Democratic state senator for always wanting to “give it to the people without Vaseline.” He has likened the Internal Revenue Service to the Gestapo and, when criticized for the remark, claimed the agency’s enforcement of Obamacare would cause a slaughter comparable to the Holocaust. He told schoolchildren that Maine’s newspapers are full of lies and joked about bombing the largest of them, the Portland Press Herald, where I work and have been covering LePage’s antics.
LePage’s behavior has been all the more jarring because Mainers have long seen their state as a bastion of practical, common-sense politics. It’s a place whose most revered politicians in recent years have been consensus-minded, congenitally civil U.S. senators, like moderate Republicans Margaret Chase Smith, Bill Cohen, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins; independent Angus King; and centrist Democrats Edmund Muskie and George Mitchell. Firebrands rarely win statewide office here.
But from the moment he became governor three years ago, Paul LePage has turned those assumptions upside down. (I asked to speak with him about his effect on Maine’s political landscape, but the governor rarely grants interviews, and I didn’t hear back from his spokesperson.) “For decades,” says state Senate president Justin Alfond, a Democrat who often tangles with the governor, Mainers have felt “pride that our politics weren’t like other states. Paul LePage has changed all of this.”
***
How a man who can make even the most hot-headed conservative talk radio hosts seem reasonable won the governor’s mansion in our quiet, level-headed state goes back to another unusual facet of Maine politics: our tradition of strong third-party candidates, who can split the vote and increase the risk of the election of a candidate whose polices or personality lack wide support.
Republicans are the smallest of Maine’s electoral blocks (28 percent of registered voters) after independents (37 percent) and Democrats (32 percent). But LePage had the luxury in 2010 of running against not just one independent but three. He won the election with 38 percent of the vote and a 1.7 percentage point margin over independent Eliot Cutler.
LePage campaigned on a promise to improve the economy by scaling back taxes, welfare and regulations—and he’s accomplished much of it. In 2011, he signed a $150 million tax cut, the largest in state history, which reduced the top income tax rate and doubled the estate tax exemption from $1 million to $2 million. Under LePage, a five-year limit on welfare benefits was imposed—in order to stop Maine from being a welfare “destination state”—and laws restricting big-box stores and mining were repealed.
Other LePage initiatives have been nonstarters, though. Maine trades on its natural beauty, and his plan to roll back environmental regulations—including the BPA ban—was rejected by the then-Republican-controlled legislature. Shortly after he signed a bill to end same-day voting registration, it was overturned in a popular referendum by 65 to 35 percent. More recently, LePage said he would like to lower the legal working age from 16 to 12—a plan unlikely to get traction in the Democratic-controlled statehouse—and he has promised renewed pushes to reduce welfare fraud and pass “right to work” legislation, which prohibits closed union shops.
Colin Woodard is the author of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. He is State & National Affairs Writer at the Portland Press Herald, where he won a 2012 George Polk Award for his reporting.
What better way to start a governorship than to refuse to attend a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day breakfast and, when the NAACP complains, tell them, on camera, to “kiss my butt”?
That’s how Maine’s governor, Paul LePage, introduced himself to the nation three years ago, and the Republican Tea Party favorite quickly followed up with a series of intemperate remarks and questionable actions that arguably garnered him more negative national media attention than any Maine politician since Sen. James G. Blaine, the so-called “continental liar from the State of Maine” whose 1884 presidential run was derailed by graft and corruption charges.
LePage’s first major initiatives as governor—to roll back all state environmental laws to weaker federal standards and stop a ban on bisphenol A (BPA), an endocrine disruptor, in baby bottles—were drafted by his special adviser, a registered lobbyist for many of the affected industries. LePage defended the restoration of BPA in bottles by saying, with a smirk, that the worst that could happen was that “some women may have little beards.” Even as that effort collapsed, crowds of protesters were on the steps of the statehouse condemning LePage’s removal of a mural illustrating the history of Maine’s labor movement from the Department of Labor because an anonymous letter writer had likened it to North Korean efforts to “brainwash the masses.”
And that was just his first 100 days. LePage has since threatened to move his office out of the statehouse (over a dispute involving a television used to promote his policies in a public space), refused for months to allow his commissioners to testify before legislative committees and ordered state employees not to speak to the state’s largest newspaper chain (a move that earned national attention but went unimplemented).
He is skeptical of wind power—and sabotaged a $120 million offshore wind investment by Norwegian energy giant Statoil last year—perhaps in part because of a declared belief that some turbines “have a little electric motor that turns the blades [when the wind isn’t blowing] … so that they can show people wind power works.” A champion of charter schools and voucher initiatives, he has advised students: “If you want a good education, go to private schools. If you can’t afford it, tough luck. You can go to the public school.”
As for President Barack Obama, LePage said on the campaign trail that the president could “go to hell” and reportedly told supporters at a private fundraiser that Obama “hates white people,” a remark LePage later apologized for, even as—in a feat of gymnastic oratory—he declined to confirm or deny having said it.
In June, LePage denounced a Democratic state senator for always wanting to “give it to the people without Vaseline.” He has likened the Internal Revenue Service to the Gestapo and, when criticized for the remark, claimed the agency’s enforcement of Obamacare would cause a slaughter comparable to the Holocaust. He told schoolchildren that Maine’s newspapers are full of lies and joked about bombing the largest of them, the Portland Press Herald, where I work and have been covering LePage’s antics.
LePage’s behavior has been all the more jarring because Mainers have long seen their state as a bastion of practical, common-sense politics. It’s a place whose most revered politicians in recent years have been consensus-minded, congenitally civil U.S. senators, like moderate Republicans Margaret Chase Smith, Bill Cohen, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins; independent Angus King; and centrist Democrats Edmund Muskie and George Mitchell. Firebrands rarely win statewide office here.
But from the moment he became governor three years ago, Paul LePage has turned those assumptions upside down. (I asked to speak with him about his effect on Maine’s political landscape, but the governor rarely grants interviews, and I didn’t hear back from his spokesperson.) “For decades,” says state Senate president Justin Alfond, a Democrat who often tangles with the governor, Mainers have felt “pride that our politics weren’t like other states. Paul LePage has changed all of this.”
***
How a man who can make even the most hot-headed conservative talk radio hosts seem reasonable won the governor’s mansion in our quiet, level-headed state goes back to another unusual facet of Maine politics: our tradition of strong third-party candidates, who can split the vote and increase the risk of the election of a candidate whose polices or personality lack wide support.
Republicans are the smallest of Maine’s electoral blocks (28 percent of registered voters) after independents (37 percent) and Democrats (32 percent). But LePage had the luxury in 2010 of running against not just one independent but three. He won the election with 38 percent of the vote and a 1.7 percentage point margin over independent Eliot Cutler.
LePage campaigned on a promise to improve the economy by scaling back taxes, welfare and regulations—and he’s accomplished much of it. In 2011, he signed a $150 million tax cut, the largest in state history, which reduced the top income tax rate and doubled the estate tax exemption from $1 million to $2 million. Under LePage, a five-year limit on welfare benefits was imposed—in order to stop Maine from being a welfare “destination state”—and laws restricting big-box stores and mining were repealed.
Other LePage initiatives have been nonstarters, though. Maine trades on its natural beauty, and his plan to roll back environmental regulations—including the BPA ban—was rejected by the then-Republican-controlled legislature. Shortly after he signed a bill to end same-day voting registration, it was overturned in a popular referendum by 65 to 35 percent. More recently, LePage said he would like to lower the legal working age from 16 to 12—a plan unlikely to get traction in the Democratic-controlled statehouse—and he has promised renewed pushes to reduce welfare fraud and pass “right to work” legislation, which prohibits closed union shops.
Colin Woodard is the author of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. He is State & National Affairs Writer at the Portland Press Herald, where he won a 2012 George Polk Award for his reporting.
this is straight out of a comedy skit
