Tag Archives: Paul LePage

Budget nonsense shows Maine GOP has earned its diminished stature

Political effectiveness is not determined by any one election cycle. It’s a culture, cultivated over years, across elections. The decisions made during this election cycle don’t go away after Election Day. They shape the opinions of voters over a lifetime, and mistakes made during one period aren’t forgotten just because one side wins or loses […]

Virginia’s firm stand against racism puts Maine to shame

I grew up in Virginia in the 1980s. My high school’s sports teams were the Rebels, and our mascot was Johnny Reb, a cartoonish soldier holding a bugle and a Confederate flag. My high school was located on Old Lee Highway, named for Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and I lived in a neighborhood called […]

Progressives don’t need more protests. They need a better argument.

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, including thousands in Maine, participated in this weekend’s Women’s March. It was a massive show of force from those outraged by the persistent cultural and institutional misogyny in our country, exemplified by our current president and his repulsive attitude toward women. Demonstrations of this magnitude are noteworthy, and often serve […]

How not to lobby Susan Collins

If you want to influence Susan Collins on a key vote, the last person you’d enlist to help is Gov. Paul LePage. But that’s exactly what the Trump administration did when they flew Maine’s governor to Washington for a press conference on Friday. Looking like a nervous kid waiting in the principal’s office after spray […]

Poverty isn’t eliminated by threatening the poor

In his book Madness and Civilization, the French philosopher Michel Foucault describes the historical arc of social integration of those considered insane. At times, humans have driven the “mad,” as Foucault described them, into hidden institutional recesses. At other times, cultures kept the “mad” in plain sight, not accepting their actions or mental states as […]

Hysterical fear of the media is not a political strategy

  Rep. Bruce Poliquin is having another spate of bad publicity. Caught on tape behind closed doors, Poliquin reinforced his opponents’ contention that he is afraid to engage his constituents by spinning a convoluted yarn about why he won’t do press interviews. In short: the press is out to get him, he said. Sound familiar? […]

The Republican Party has a stupidity problem

I have thought for some time that the Republican Party has a racism problem. But what I’m starting to realize is the Republican Party has a stupidity problem, which sometimes manifests itself in racism. Let me say from the outset, to be clear, that I am a member of the Republican Party, and have worked […]