Maine’s LePage ready to try federal policymaking

By most measures, Maine Gov. Paul LePage’s (R) tenure hasn’t gone especially well. The Tea Party Republican, elected twice after an independent candidate split the center-left in both races, has generally earned a reputation as an offensive buffoon, whose antics often border on repulsive.

 

But as WMTW in Portland reported yesterday, the Maine governor is nevertheless ready for some kind of promotion.

“I said earlier that if I’m not into the Trump Administration, I will be running against Angus King,” LePage reportedly said. “Now, don’t tell my wife. She hasn’t said yes yet.”

 

In other words, the Maine governor is so confident in his successes as a state policymaker, he’s ready to parlay his unique talents into shaping federal policy, too.

 

The Republican didn’t specify exactly which job he’d like to have in a Trump administration — LePage has no real areas of expertise — and the presumptive Republican nominee, who picked up the Maine governor’s endorsement in February, hasn’t publicly suggested he expects LePage to be part of his team.

 

And yet, the governor, perhaps tired of his current job and the frequency with which his many vetoes are overturned, is nevertheless daring to dream.

 

Of course, if Trump loses in November — or, as hard as this may seem to imagine, if a President Trump declines to offer LePage a powerful federal job in Washington — the Maine Republican will apparently turn his attention to Sen. Angus King’s (I) re-election bid in 2018.

 

As the Bangor Daily News reported this week, some progressive activists in Maine believe that would be a terrific idea.

 

“Your opponents deserve the delicious schadenfreude of watching the Hindenberg-level disaster that a LePage Senate campaign will deliver,” reads a new MoveOn.org petition.