If you're wondering how an overt right-wing extremist like Gov. Paul LePage (R-ME) could get elected in Maine, it's because, in 2010, he received 38.3% of the vote in a race where three other candidates, Eliot Cutler (I), Libby Mitchell (D), and Shawn Moody (I) got at least 5% of the vote.
Now, Democratic State Sen. Colleen Lachowicz, whose 2012 state senate race garnered national attention after being attacked by Republicans for playing the video game World of Warcraft, is now trying to rally anti-LePage Mainers around Democratic U.S. Rep. Mike Michaud, who is running against LePage in the upcoming 2014 gubernatorial election, and Lachowicz put out this statement tying LePage to Republican Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker:
Wisconsin and Maine are what happens when reactionary governors push severe austerity measures during bad economic times, despite the fact that the International Monetary Fund has backed away from austerity -- because it doesn't work.
Every so often I have a conversation with someone about how our state taxes people too much and spends too much money (despite evidence to the contrary), and they demand more cuts. We cut taxes and spending two years ago, and this is the result. When government becomes so small that it fails to function properly and causes businesses to shy away from your state, then it's too small.
I want "Open for Business" to be a reality rather than a slogan. I want to be one of the 47 states that created jobs this past year, rather than be one of the three that didn't.
Bring on Mike Michaud for Governor, because oh Lord, do we need him.
Michaud isn't a progressive (he voted to ban partial-birth abortion back in 2003, for example, although he's pulled himself to the left on social issues in recent years), and neither is Cutler (he's of the Joe Lieberman/Mike Bloomberg mold, if I'm not mistaken), who has announced his intention to run against LePage as an independent again in 2014, so I'm not endorsing anyone in the 2014 Maine gubernatorial race.
However, I'm wondering if the Democratic Governors' Association (DGA), which has published this pro-Michaud press release, is going to make it their priority to try to tie LePage and other Republican governors of swing states and Democratic-leaning states to Scott Walker at every opportunity.