Drew Gattine of Westbrook about the legislator calling him a racist.
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LePage left an obscenity-laced phone message Thursday morning for Rep.
“I am after you”, the governor said in the message to Representative Drew Gattine. And despite being heard on the voicemail to Gattine saying, “I want you to record this and make it public”, the governor went on to tell reporters Friday: “It was intended for his ears and his ears only”.
“He called me a racist, and in my mind, there is not a word in the English dictionary more offensive or hurtful for somebody that’s worked with minorities, with people who are disadvantaged my whole life”. You – I need you to – just friggin’.
“I made the comment that black people are trafficking in our state, now ever since I said that comment I’ve been collecting every single drug dealer who has been arrested in our state”, LePage said, according to the Portland Press Herald. LePage, a Republican, now faces calls for his resignation. “I would point it right between his eyes because he is a snot-nosed little runt and he has not done a damn thing since he’s been in this Legislature to help move the state forward”.
“Paul LePage is not mentally or emotionally fit to hold office”, Assistant House Democratic Leader Sara Gideon, a Democrat in Freeport, said in a statement.
Gattine said he was stunned to receive the voicemail. Obviously, it is illegal today; it was simply a metaphor and I meant no physical harm to Gattine.
LePage said Wednesday he started keeping a photo catalog following an uproar over remarks he made in January that drug dealers from CT and NY, with names like “D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty”, are getting Maine’s young white women pregnant.
As the original story from the Portland Press-Herald makes clear, LePage wasn’t trying to hide his behavior.
LePage said in the press conference that there is no racial profiling by ME police.
Gattine did not respond immediately to calls for comment. Also in January, LePage told ME gun owners they should “load up and get rid of the drug dealers”.
House and Senate Democrats on Friday questioned LePage’s capacity to lead. A police official said the complaint came from someone who didn’t live in the city. He said it was “never my intent to insult or to be hurtful to anyone”, The Associated Press reports.
Yet, he would not call the ME governor a racist when asked if sounding liking a racist made LePage one. It is the absolute worst, most vile thing you can call a person. So he says he referred to Gattine as a vulgar name involving oral sex because it was the “worst word” he could think of. The governor made the remark at a town hall in North Berwick, Maine, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016. “I apologize for that to the people of Maine, but I make no apology for trying to end the drug epidemic that is ravaging our state”. To get reelected, he beat former Congressman Mike Michaud, who had to come out when, he said, a whisper campaign was mounting against him about him being gay. “Legislators like Gattine would rather be politically correct and protect ruthless drug dealers than work with me to stop this crisis that is killing five Mainers a week”.
The American Civil Liberties Union of ME had pointed out Thursday that research shows blacks and whites deal drugs at similar rates.
“I was Donald Trump before Donald Trump became popular, so I think I should support him since we’re one of the same cloth”, he told a radio show host in February.
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Well, whoever leaked it to the press (*cough* Gattine *cough*) was only doing what LePage asked.
