During a town hall meeting on Wednesday in Bridgton, Maine, the notoriously blunt and politically incorrect politician answered how he would solve Maine’s heroin problem by pinning it on outsiders.
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The governor’s communication director was quick to clarify that LePage was “not making comments about race” in his warnings about drug dealers D-Money, Smoothie and Shifty impregnating Maine’s young white girls. He added that half the time the guys get a young, white girl pregnant prior to leaving, which is sad because then there is another issues to deal with in the future.
LePage’s spokesman told the Portland Press Herald, “The governor is not making comments about race. Instead of saying, ‘Maine women, ‘ I said, ‘White women.’ I’m not going to apologize to the Maine women for that because if you go to Maine you will see we are essentially 95 percent white“.
Lepage went on to say that the same men often “impregnate a young, white woman” before heading back down the coast.
So there you go. There are 54.3 births for every 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44 in ME – one of the lowest birth rates in the country – but the state keeps no record of how numerous fathers are drug dealers from CT or NY who left the state shortly after their children were conceived. “I know where they’re from, I don’t know if they’re white, black, asian, I don’t know”.
The spokesperson said LePage’s heart went out to those kids due to him having a childhood that was hard as well. So LePage probably thinks he will suffer little penalty for scapegoating Maine’s drug problem on blacks. “The governor’s comments were racist, and each one of us has an obligation to stand up and speak out”.
As the Huffington Post’s Mollie Riley points out, LePage has taken a law-enforcement-only approach to the crisis, calling for a crackdown on out-of-state dealers and suggesting he might call in the National Guard to help.
“If I was flawless, I would be a reporter”, LePage said.
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“I made a mistake and I’m not ideal, but I will not stop correcting myself and bringing the issue at hand: drugs, drugs and more drugs”, he said. LePage has previously drawn ire for similarly charged remarks, including at a 2013 event when attendees claimed he said President Obama “hates white people”, the Maine Sun Journal reported.
