Gov. Paul LePage (R. ME)
I was inspired today to write a diary about Governor Paul LePage (R. ME) after reading Christian Dem in NC's diary about this:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
As he strapped into the F-35 Lightning II demonstrator machine, set up for attendees of Pratt & Whitney’s annual employee appreciation day, Maine’s Republican governor joked to a nearby Lockheed Martin Corp. guide: “I want to find the Press Herald building and blow it up.”
The demonstrator allowed the Republican governor to engage in a dogfight with digitized enemy jets soaring across the monitor screens in front of him, but LePage was not able to follow through with a simulated strike on the Portland Press Herald’s One City Center offices.
Television station WMTW reporter Paul Merrill later asked LePage if he had any targets. The governor said: The Portland Press Herald and the Bangor Daily News.
Crazy shit, right? When I did a Google search on LePage to see what else he's been up to, one of the first things to pop up was this article:
http://www.philly.com/...
Say what you will about Pennsylvania's Tom Corbett, and plenty of people have, at least he's not known as "Governor Flintstone."
That would be Maine's Paul LePage, a fellow Republican that national pundits have listed alongside Corbett as an incumbent governor likely to lose in 2014. "Dead men walking," Politico recently called the two.
And there are some similarities. Both have underwater approval ratings, and each has a frosty relationship with his legislature.
But LePage, a bedrock tea party warrior, has earned his Stone Age nickname with a hard-edged and sometimes vulgar approach to politics that makes Corbett seem like a cuddly and softspoken centrist. - Philadelphia Inquirer, 8/10/13
I'm sure a lot of you already know that I am a Pennsylvania native and I have written a lot about how awful Corbett is. But LePage is way more outspoken with his insanity. Here's a couple of reasons why LePage has earned the title "Governor Flintstone:
http://bangordailynews.com/...
Two longtime gay marriage opponents commended Gov. Paul LePage Wednesday for speaking up against sodomy with a crude reference to Vaseline that garnered the chief executive national attention.
LePage’s administration quickly distanced him from Michael Heath, best known as the former executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, and Paul Madore, director of the Maine Grassroots Coalition. The two said at a news conference at the State House on Wednesday that when LePage said Democratic Sen. Troy Jackson claimed “to be for the people but he’s the first one to give it to the people without providing Vaseline,” he advanced anti-gay causes because it portrayed sodomy in negative terms.
“Gov. Paul LePage was in good company using an allusion to sodomy to condemn expensive, big-government solutions to the challenges confronting Maine people,” said Heath to reporters and about a dozen members of the public. “Those condemned by the governor’s remark are the very same leaders who are promoting sodomy in our schools. This fact makes his allusion even more powerful. He used figurative language to reveal a profound truth about our current situation. Maine is being sodomized by the left, especially our impressionable and innocent children.” - Bangor Daily News, 7/17/13
And of course there's this:
On top of being crazy, LePauge is also pretty corrupt:
Augusta is a dangerous place for anyone who gets in the way of Gov. LePage’s ALEC-written agenda.
The first-term governor packed his administration with lobbyists and used his office to promote their environmental-deregulation agenda, and allegedly went so far as to fire a state employee who testified in favor of policies the administration opposed.
Gov. LePage also attempted to gut his state’s open records act, and is under investigation by the federal government for trying to bully employees of the state Department of Labor into deciding more cases in favor of business.
Elected in 2010; running for reelection in 2014
Hired lobbyists who formulated an anti-regulation agenda and engaged in politically motivated firings of state employees; attempted to gut open an records law
Under investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Solicitor General for bullying employees - CREW
It's only a matter of time until Rep. Michael Michaud (D. ME) jumps into the race and takes out LePage:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/...
The independent candidacy of Eliot Cutler is the only thing keeping Maine Gov. Paul LePage's hopes for a second term alive, according to a new Democratic poll conducted for a national labor group. But even in a three-way race similar to the contest he won in 2010, LePage faces a tough road to reelection.
The survey was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research and paid for by the National Education Association. It tested the Republican governor in a one-on-one matchup with Democratic Rep. Michael Michaud, as well as in a three-way contest with Michaud and Cutler. Michaud announced last month that he's exploring a gubernatorial bid, while Cutler is embarking on his second gubernatorial run after finishing a close second to LePage in 2010.
In the three-way contest, Michaud outpaces the governor by nine points, 40 percent to 31 percent, while Cutler finishes third with 26 percent. In 2010, LePage won with 38 percent, while Cutler finished with 36 percent and Democratic nominee Libby Mitchell garnered just 19 percent. - National Journal, 7/26/13