The normally normal politics of Maine have been shattered in recent years by a governor who, like Donald Trump, displays narcissistic personality disorder. It should be said in Maine's defense that Paul LePage's reelection was thanks to a third candidate - Eliot Cutler - no humble, modest creature himself - dividing the vote that permitted LePage to win with substantially less than a majority. Here are some Trump like moments with Paul LePage:
Ron Schmidt, Maine Beacon - Paul LePage, who in 2011 used the occasion of Martin Luther King Day to tell the NAACP to kiss his butt, actually managed to top himself this week. “These are guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty,” our governor quipped. “They come up here, they sell their heroin, then they go back home. Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue that we got to deal with down the road.”
Portland Press Herald:
2010: As a candidate for governor, LePage ... told a group of fishermen at a forum that he wouldn’t be afraid to tell President Obama to “go to hell.” He later said he regretted the words, but didn’t back down on criticism of the administration.
January 2011: After the director of the state’s NAACP chapter said the group felt neglected when LePage declined invitations to attend two Martin Luther King Jr. Day events, citing scheduling conflicts, a reporter asked LePage about it. He answered: “Tell them to kiss my butt.” On the holiday, LePage ended up attending a breakfast honoring the slain civil rights leader, an event sponsored by a Rotary club and a senior citizens’ group.
February 2011: LePage dismissed the negative health effects caused by the chemical BPA during a news conference, saying: “The only thing that I’ve heard is if you take a plastic bottle and put it in the microwave and you heat it up, it gives off a chemical similar to estrogen. So the worst case is some women may have little beards.”
July 2012: LePage, in a radio address, assailed a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld the health care overhaul law, saying Americans had no choice but to buy health insurance or “pay the new Gestapo — the IRS.” He later said he didn’t mean to offend the Jewish community or minimize the Holocaust.
June 2013: Expressing his frustration over the state budget, LePage [said] a Democratic opponent, saying the lawmaker “claims to be for the people, but he’s the first one to give it to the people without providing Vaseline.”
August 2013: Sitting in a flight simulator while visiting North Berwick defense contractor Pratt & Whitney, LePage joked “I want to find the Portland Press Herald building and blow it up.”
June 24, 2015: LePage joked that he would “like to shoot” George Danby, a cartoonist for the Bangor Daily News. The remark was made an assembly of about 200 high school juniors attending Dirigo Boys State in Waterville in response to a question from Danby’s son. LePage later sent an apology note to Danby’s son.
“If you want to make it racist, go ahead,” he told reporters about his comment that out-of-state drug dealers – “guys with the name Dee Money, Smoothie, Shifty” – come to Maine to sell heroin and “half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave.”
“In one of the movies of ‘Rocky’ there’s a quote in there, and I’ll just sort of paraphrase it,” he said to the reporters. “‘Youz don’t like me and I don’t like you.’ I’m going to tell you that I sincerely mean that.”
During the news conference, LePage repeatedly disparaged the assembled reporters, sometimes directly and other times with snarky, backhanded compliments and multiple references to “you people.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not like you guys. I’m not a polished speaker,” he said. “Do I want to be perfect? No. If I were perfect, I’d be a reporter.”
... During the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, LePage stormed out of a news conference when questioned about his property taxes in Maine.
He blasted the media during his inauguration speech in 2011. Not long after taking office, reporters were told to leave a ceremonial signing of a bill to require training school employees on suicide prevention and awareness. LePage then complained during the ceremony that the media wouldn’t cover the event because it was a positive news story.
In 2012, during a presentation at Waterville Junior High School, LePage told 150 eighth-graders that reading newspapers in Maine is “like paying somebody to tell you lies.”
On April 27, 2012 LePage, while at a town hall meeting in Newport, responded to a question about excessive government fees by saying "The problem is the middle management of the state is about as corrupt as you can be. Believe me, we're trying every day to get them to go to work, but it's hard."
Frank Rizzo
This remarkable 1980 video - dug up by Curtis Kise - shows a forerunner of Trump and LePage: Philadelphia's narcissistic ex police chief and mayor Frank Rizzo. We almost got the impression that Trump had studied this film as part of his training. Don't miss the real fun that starts about 3:00 minutes in
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