If You Want to Know What a Trump Presidency Might Look Like Come Stay Awhile in Maine

When New Jersey governor Chris Christie took himself out of the running for president, Maine’s governor Paul LePage, endorsed Donald Trump. In doing so he claimed “he was more like Trump than Thump.”  So if you wonder just what it would be like to live with a leader who paints himself in a similar vein read on. For this is a bit about what life has been like for Mainers over the past six years.

In 2010 five people ran for Governor of Maine in the general election: a republican, a democrat, and three independents. Thus, the vote for governor was split five ways. When the dust settled the tea party republican, Paul LePage won with 39% of the vote. Eliot Cutler, an independent came in second with 20,000 fewer votes than LePage. I thoroughly disliked LePage, but, as a good citizen I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Whether or not he was my choice, he was still the leader of the state in which I live, and where I intend to die and have my ashes (or at least some of them) interred.

            On paper Paul LePage appeared to be an ideal candidate. His parents were French Canadians who came to the United States to work in the manufacturing mills in Lewiston. He was the oldest of 18 children. As a child he spoke only French. His father was an alcoholic who regularly beat Paul, and so at age 11 Paul LePage ran away from home. For two years he lived on the streets until eventually someone took him in, gave him food and shelter and saw to Paul’s education. His mentor even went so far as to persuade the officials of Husson College in Bangor to let Paul take an entrance exam in French, after doing poorly while writing in English.

            In this rags to riches story LePage, with help, pulled himself out of poverty, graduated from college, because fluent in accent-less English, married, had children, and steadily rose the corporate ladder through a series of jobs in both Maine and eastern Canada. He was hired by Marden’s, a Maine institution (“I should have bought it when I saw it at Marden’s”) that sold salvage and surplus material at drastically reduced prices. Eventually, in addition to his role as the CEO of Marden’s, LePage served as a selectman and mayor of Waterville, ME.

            You might think that with this background LePage would have empathy for the poor of Maine. Not so much. He ran for governor on a tea party platform that relied heavily on welfare reform, reducing the size of government, and, cutting taxes. He has succeeded in cutting the number of able bodied single people on welfare, offering job hunting, job training, and even volunteering to get them back into the work force. And that is good. (This program does not include women with small children, nor does it include our ever-graying elders.) (Maine has one of the highest percentage of residents who are 65 or older.) And it ought to be of aid to former paper mill workers whose plants have closed down.

I also applaud LePage for reimbursing the hospitals of Maine the millions of dollars in Medicaid funds the state had received from the federal government during his predecessor's administration. It was meant to repay hospitals for care already given but LePage's predecessor and the legislature kept spending it on other programs.

   

Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to see the good because of all the bombastic behavior coming out of the governor’s office. Here are just a few examples:

·         Within a few weeks of taking office LePage was asked if he would join other newly elected governors in meeting President Obama. His reply, “Obama can kiss my butt.”

·         Three months after being sworn in LePage ordered the removal of a large mural from the Maine Department of Labor offices because he thought it too pro-union, rather than simply factual. The way in which he did so was dictatorial with absolutely no insight into the way it might be perceived by the people who painted and donated the mural.

·         He has absented himself from more than one regional governors’ conference.

·         This summer he did not attend any of a four day working visit from various private and government organizations looking at creative ways to make Maine’s timber industry vital again.

·         In June 2013 LePage refused to sign a budget created by a bipartisan group of state legislators. In doing so he accused his major detractor of “trying to stick it to the people of Maine without the use of Vaseline.”

·         When trying to repeal the bill prohibiting the sale of plastic bottles with the chemical BPH he commented he didn’t see a problem with BPH other than some women would “grow little beards.”

·         Following his reelection in 2012, LePage  has followed through on his promise to veto every single bill proposed by a democrat in the state legislature, beginning in 2013.

·         Also, since 2013 he has done or said:

Allow 12 bills he didn't like to become law because he misunderstood his role in vetoing those bills.

Refused to meet with the legislature. He communicates with the people of Maine through a series of town meetings now.

But wait, there’s more, and it is these two SNAFUs that have caused many people in Maine to wonder if he is fit to lead the state for two more years.

            The first erupted as a result of LePage’s plans to create charter schools in Maine. Unfortunately, he and the speaker of the house, Democrat Mark Eves tangled over the details, especially whether or not virtual schools should have a place in the charter school program. Meanwhile, Goodwill-Hinkley, which until a few years ago was an orphanage or home for displaced children, closed. Goodwill Hinkley has a beautiful campus near Skowhegan and with the charter school concept in mind Maine educators went forward with a plan to create the Maine Academy of Natural Sciences, a residential charter school for students in grades 9-12. Mark Eves was among the people who applied for, and then was ultimately appointed as its first director. ( If there was ever a serious attempt to ask Eves about his change of heart, and how he might use that to the betterment of Maine people, I've not seen it-and I read the Portland paper faithfully.)

            LePage was incensed. How could the board of trustees of the Maine Academy of Natural Sciences have chosen Mark Eves? He didn’t ask. Instead he threatened. And then he threatened again, until finally he threatened to rescind the state’s financial support of the Academy as long as Eves was at the helm. This he did in a letter addressed to the chairman of trustees for the Academy. Eventually Eves resigned and the Academy got its funding. However, in threatening to withhold state money LePage broke the law. Lawsuits and impeachment were threatened but the latter was tabled indefinitely by the republican held senate.

            Which at last, brings me to the reason for the “Welcome to Maine, Our Governor is an Idiot” sign posted on Facebook. Like so many other states Maine has a serious addiction problem. Rather than seeing addiction as a medical problem with, at minimum, some mental health components LePage has tended to look at the problem as a crime. He was reluctant (still is) to make the opiate antagonist Naloxone widely available to the general public, insinuating that addicts’ lives are not worth saving, especially since, with Naloxone, an addict can shoot up, get high, and then be resuscitated again and again. He has failed to provide sufficient funds to social service agencies to treat addicts  and help them get clean.

            But what has really put him in hot water were claims made at a town hall meeting earlier this year, and then again last month: that all drug dealers are people of color who come to Maine to impregnate innocent white girls. (Maine is the whitest state in the country and most people of color are Native Americans.) He later restated his concern of drug dealers impregnating Maine girls. That he has been keeping track  of the ethnicity of drug dealers (and bragging about it) is an impeachable offense. But Maine has no methodology in place for impeaching a governor who no longer seems to have his citizen’s best interests at heart.

            There was a time when LePage was a source of humor. "Did you see what the Governor has done now?" Those days are long over. Whether or not any of the actions of Paul LePage have been useful to the state, whether or not he is correct, LePage does what Trump does: opens his mouth, shoots off, and then apologizes. His behavior is so like Donald Trump’s he remarked, when endorsing Trump, he was like Trump before Trump was like Trump.

 At least Maine doesn't own any nuclear weapons.