WTF Is Going On With Maine’s Governor?
Maine’s governors rarely register on America’s national stage. But Governor Paul LePage is different.
To his critics, of whom there are many, he is an unwelcome combination of Sarah Palin’s intellect and Donald Trump’s empathy.
A climate change denier and rabid opponent of “big government,” he’s been described by Esquire magazine as a “human bowling-jacket.” Politico called him “America’s craziest Governor” and marvelled at the fact he was re-elected in 2014.
As the Associated Press reported, “Among his greatest hits of inflammatory rhetoric: he once said he wouldn’t be afraid to tell President Barack Obama to ‘go to hell’; he told the Portland NAACP to ‘kiss my butt’; and he said a political opponent gives it to the people ‘without providing Vaseline.’
Lovely.
His latest gaffe may be the final straw. Last week he complained that out-of-state drug dealers with names like “D-Money, Smoothie and Shifty” are getting Maine’s “white girls” pregnant.
The comments were widely condemned as racist, prompting the normally combative LePage to apologize, saying, “My brain didn’t catch up to my mouth.”
In the aftermath of the furor, this week Maine Democratic legislators are beginning a process to impeach LePage, although the effort is not expected to get past the Republican-controlled state senate.
The impeachment is tied to LePage’s admitted attempt to withhold state funding for a public charter school that planned to hire House Speaker Mark Eves, a Democrat and LePage enemy, as president. The school dropped Eves as a result.
LePage has close ties to New Brunswick. After marrying fellow Husson College student, and Florenceville native, Sharon Crabbe in 1972, the couple lived in Perth Andover. LePage worked as manger of nearby Arutherette Lumber, which was owned by Crabbe’s family.
The pair had two children but divorced in 1979, although an investigation by the Boston Phoenix claims he actually returned to the United States in 1977.
His time in New Brunswick sparked controversy during his first election campaign in Maine, with some claiming that he moved to Canada to avoid the Vietnam draft, which was in full swing at the time, although the Phoenix’s investigation debunks this.
LePage often plays up his French roots. In response to allegations that his effort to prevent the hiring of the House Speaker by the charter school was blackmail, LePage told the Bangor Daily News, “I think you’re misusing the word — and that’s coming from a Frenchman.”
And then when asked about the rules around the veto process, he said, “It’s very clear, very, very clear — even I can understand it and I’m French.”
Some people in Maine’s Franco-American community aren’t pleased. Judy Ayotte Paradis, a former state senator from Frenchville, takes issue with Lepage’s brand of cultural humour.
She told the Bangor Daily News that, “He is reinforcing the stereotype of the dumb Frenchman, and so he’s saying he’s dumb and ignorant and we have to forgive those gaffes, those multiple, multiple gaffes that he’s making by saying, ‘Oh it’s my French — I’m French,’ so that he can get away with murder on this deal.”