LePage also conceded that “if I’ve lost my ability to help Maine people, maybe it’s time to move on” from being governor. LePage’s remarks came after he left Gattine the voice message and raged at reporters asking about LePage’s comments at a town hall meeting in North Berwick and about a three-ring binder of news clippings and booking mugshots of heroine trafficking suspects that LePage said he maintained and was predominantly made up of blacks and Hispanics.
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The Republican governor has a long history of making controversial statements dating back to 2010 when he said if he were elected governor, he’d tell President Obama to “go to hell”. A businessman asked how he could bring a company to ME “given the rhetoric you put out there about people of color”.
Westbrook is the home of Drew Gattine (gah-TEEN’). LePage said he was upset that Gattine insinuated he’s a racist.
“They come from CT and NY, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home”, he said.
Later that month, he said convicted drug criminals should face “the guillotine”.
LePage has been criticized in recent days for leaving an obscene voicemail on the cellphone of a Democratic legislator and for blaming minorities for the state’s heroin crisis.
First, there was the expletive-laden voicemail left for ME state Rep.
Some Senate Republicans have said they want a substantial “corrective action” for LePage, while Democrats, in the majority in the House, and minority in the Senate, continue to call for LePage to step down after he said he wished it was 1825 so he and Gattine could engage in a duel with pistols. “It’s not something that I’ve ever called anybody”, he said.
One of the hosts referred to an interview during his first term when LePage said he is not a quitter. “Deep down in my heart I know I am not a racist”. It felt “like calling a black man the “N” word or a woman the “C” word”.
“It just absolutely knocked me off my feet”, LePage said.
The governor said he was considering his options, but offered no specifics. That same year, a charter school said LePage threatened to strip it of its funding if it did not rescind a job offer to Democratic state House Speaker Mark Eves. “It’s another thing not to have any party behind you”, he said. I want to talk to you. Given LePage’s m.o., it seems just as likely the Maine Republican will wait a while, see if the controversy fades from public view, and hope people lose interest in his self-inflicted wounds. He added, “So, I didn’t make up the rules”.
“Every drug arrest, we get the story and the people, and when it comes to meth labs it’s all white people from ME”, he said.
The Republican governor landed in the headlines after he left a profanity-laced voicemail for ME state Rep. He told the reporter that he would “point [his gun] right between his eyes” and that Gattine was “a snot-nosed little runt”.
These are arguments that liberals in ME have been making for years, but it appears as though conservatives have finally reached their breaking point following LePage’s attack on State Rep.
Rep. Jeff McCabe, D-Skowhegan, who is the majority leader of Maine’s House of Representatives, wrote Tuesday to Gov. Charlie Baker, LePage, Lowell’s entire legislative delegation and U.S. Sen.
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The Portland Press Herald reported this morning that LePage “raised the possibility” of resigning during an interview today.
