LePage won re-election in 2014 over two other candidates with the most votes in ME history, and his unfiltered zeal for dismantling “political correctness” and tackling welfare and immigration policy has long appealed to his base of conservative, Tea Party-inspired supporters.
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“When I was called a racist I just lost it, and there’s no excuse”, LePage said on WVOM.
“I was talking about the trafficking and if legislators think it something different, than they should have been attending because I think it is pretty clear that I have been talking about traffickers”, said LePage in the WVOM interview. “I’m not saying I am going to finish it”. “And if I’ve lost my ability to convince the Maine people, that’s what we need, and that’s the kind of people we need in Augusta, then, you know, maybe it is time to move on”. “He continued to make those comment again this morning”.
The row began following a town hall meeting in North Berwick, where LePage said he had collected a binder of photographs of drug dealers arrested in the state.
Republican Senate President Mike Thibodeau said LePage should take “corrective action” for his “unacceptable” conduct.
The uncommon rebuff of a sitting governor comes while LePage is mired in the controversy that began last Wednesday by his latest racially charged comments about Maine’s drug epidemic. The governor’s office said the remark during a radio interview was just a joke to illustrate his support for tougher penalties for drug crimes.
The leaked voicemail prompted members of LePage’s own party to question his ability to lead the state.
ME does not have a lieutenant governor, so if LePage were to step down, the president of the state’s senate, Republican Michael Thibodeau, would take over.
LePage additionally said earlier Tuesday he would speak with his staff before altering his political future.
Asked why he called the meeting, the governor said, “I want to look him in the eye and apologize if I have to, but at the same token, I think he owes me a little bit of an apology”.
LePage described Gattine as a “cocksucker” in the message that he left on his voicemail last week. LePage added that in his state of 1.3 million people, a grand total of four Mainers wrote to him, urging him to resign.
According to the Press Herald, LePage interpreted from an exchange with a reporter that Gattine had called him a racist, which Gattine denied, after LePage claimed 90 percent of drug dealers arrested in ME are black or Hispanic. “I would like to talk to you about your comments about my being a racist, you (obscene term)”. Drew Gattine (gah-TEEN’) because he thought Gattine called him a racist.
Maine’s Democrats issued a letter to their Republican counterparts pleading with them to rebuke LePage’s racist statements and “press him either to get help or resign”.
LePage, whose second and final term as governor ends in 2019, told reporters last week that his repeated mentioning of the race of drug traffickers is relevant because when you go to war, “you shoot at the enemy”.
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The only issue with LePage’s remarks besides the naked racism is that his statement is a bald-faced lie. He adds: “They’re saying, ‘Well, you can’t do this”.
