Just when I figure this political year can’t get any more outlandish, Gov. LePage says he’s “seriously” thinking about challenging Sen. Angus King in 2018.
Can anyone imagine LePage on the Senate floor three years hence? I would like to think that debate in the “world’s greatest deliberative body” will be more civil by then (after all the Obama-derangement-syndrome-inspired acrimony), but adding that tough guy, tell-it-like-it-is bluster? Uh-uh.
Yes, Maine residents elected and re-elected LePage, who won in 2014 with less than 50 percent of the vote, thanks to some independent candidate distractions at a time when Mainers needed to retire him.
But doesn’t logic and common sense dictate that he disappear from public view at the end of this term? Hasn’t he done enough harm to Maine’s image of moderation?
What about Maine’s record of sending statesmen (and women) and not just political hacks to the Senate? Just think Margaret Chase Smith, Ed Muskie, George Mitchell, Bill Cohen, Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins … and then Sen. Paul LePage?
One image I can’t get out of my mind: LePage gleefully hugging and endorsing Donald Trump just before the Maine caucuses. Then Maine’s Republicans told Trump to get lost. Any connection?
Dave Griffiths, Mechanic Falls
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