It Is Possible That Maine Governor Paul LePage Has

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It Is Possible That Maine Governor Paul LePage Has Cracked Up

Will he or won't he? Does he even know?



BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
AUG 30, 2016

Human bowling jacket Paul LePage seems to be of two minds about whether or not he wants to remain governor of Maine. (I would point out that saying that LePage is of two minds still leaves him within the margin of error of having none at all.)

First, he goes on the radio and says he's open to the possibility of resigning. Then, on Tuesday afternoon, he tweets out a little somethin'-somethin' from Mark Twain.

Paul R. LePage‏@Governor_LePage

Regarding rumors of resignation, to paraphrase Mark Twain: "The reports of my political demise are greatly exaggerated."

Twain also said, "The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right." So there's that.

The Portland Press-Herald, which has produced coverage of this whole mishegas that is Exhibit Quadruple Q in favor of good local newspapering, has been tracking the various shifts and turns of LePage's fate over the past few days. It does seem that a lot of important forces in Maine have had quite enough of the governor.

"Today Maine finds itself in a situation where leaders and legislators of both parties agree that the governor is preventing the people's business from getting done," said House Speaker Mark Eves, D-North Berwick, House Majority Leader Jeff McCabe, D-Skowhegan, and Assistant House Majority Leader Sara Gideon, D-Freeport, in a joint statement. "A half-hearted, partial apology on a radio show does not get remotely close to addressing the core issue: Maine faces serious issues and its government is not functioning.

This is not a partisan issue. People of good faith on both sides of the aisle as well as newspapers across the state are demanding the real action required to have a functioning government."

It is possible that LePage has cracked up. If so, you can't do anything but hope he quits and gets whatever help he needs.

But Maine has to look deeply into its political culture to see how this guy got elected in the first place and then, hilariously, got re-elected, and why enough people were so enamored of a) LePage's tough-guy bluster, and b) the purity of third-party candidates, that the state found itself in the mess it's in now.

If you want a microcosmic preview of what the post-Trump recriminations might be like, or what the inevitable progressive-purity disappointment with Hillary Rodham Clinton will be like, then Maine is your perfect point of observation.

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