There’s some change on the Maine political media relations front this week, with two mouthpieces — one Republican and one Democrat — taking new jobs.
Republican Gov. Paul LePage has hired David Sorensen, who was the spokesman for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services for the past year, as a policy adviser, while Jodi Quintero, who spoke for House Speaker Mark Eves, D-North Berwick, will move to Washington, D.C., to join PATH, a global health policy group.
Sorensen was the face of a major political shift at DHHS in 2015, bringing an aggressive brand of messaging to the LePage administration’s battle with Democrats over welfare. He served stints as spokesman for the Maine Republican Party during the 2012 and 2014 elections around his time as communications director for Maine House Republicans. His role now will likely be less public.
Media requests for DHHS are now being directed to John Martins, who spoke for the department before Sorensen and has been doing outreach for the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Martins is a holdover from the administration of former Democratic Gov. John Baldacci with a less partisan style.
Quintero, who has worked for legislative Democrats since 2009, will join her husband, Chuck Quintero, who was recently hired by the U.S. Department of Energy, in Washington.
Jodi Quintero has been replaced by Lindsay Crete, who most recently worked for New Hampshire Kids Count, a Concord group focused on child advocacy.
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