LePage ‘lives up to these promises every day’

http://lepage2010.com/

Paul LePage is the Tea Party / Grass Roots / Conservative candidate running for Governor of Maine. He might be a Chris Christie type, as in Christies treatment of the $3 hr/ per kid teacher. An effective manager as Mayor of Waterville. Cut taxes as Mayor, in a city with a Democratic city council, and primarily Democratic voters. At the same time, he's the General Manager of a successful discount chain, somewhat similar to K-Mart, called Mardens. He's right on the issues - the most conservative, the most tea party, the most grassroots. The election is in two weeks - June 08.

The Maine primary system is interesting. There are 7 candidates running on the Republican side. The winner of this primary gets the nomination. No run-off. It's possible that the winner would get the nomination with under 30% of the vote. There have been no polls taken. So it's really difficult to determine at all what's gonna happen. I've heard somewhat convincing cases made for LePage, Abbott, Otten and Mills.

LePage has the tea party support. Not all, but a majority. Again, I strongly recommend him. He hasn't run a seamless, error free campaign. Nothing truly embarrassing, but worrysome. Things like spelling errors. If you, like me, donate to a few different races for different reason, I'd look into that a little bit and make up your mind. He's worth contributing to.

Hint, it's possible that he could at some time run for US Senate. We're talking about Maine here. Popular Maine Governor Paul LePage challenges Snowe in Primary? Former Candidate for Governor Paul LePage challenges Snowe in Primary? Which sounds better? I know that many here would like to see Collins and Snowe defeated. It has been said by some that's impossible because Maine is too liberal. Others, including me, have said that defeating Collins and Snowe would be difficult to accomplish primarily because there really isn't a heck of a lot of qualified candidates here. If LePage becomes Governor, he'll be in a much better position to take on Collins or Snowe. So, for this reason, this race does deserve national attention, if not much in the way of national press. If he wins, it's "Tea Party Candidate Paul LePage Wins Republican GOP Nomination"

Abbott is Collins chief of staff. The establishment candidate. The insider candidate. Can be presumed to be a RINO but doesn't seem to show it that much. Raised money well. There hasn't been a lot of evidence that he's spending a lot of money, but he has enough to get his message out, I'd think. Abbott is probably the front-runner (or LePage).

Otten has a lot of money and he's spending it. He's coming across as a buffoon, at least to me. Sending out mailers whose chief purpose was to complain about negative attacks on him. His money came from building a ski resort (Sunday River) and then a ski resort company (American Skiing). Sunday River did well. Otten's a pretty good entrepreneur. American Skiing did badly with Otten as CEO. It went public at $18 a share, it was down to around $2 something when he left as CEO, and Otten was still on the board when it hit $0.20 a share. When American Skiing sold Sunday River due in part to Otten's own mismanagement, Otten wanted to buy it but he was outbid. So, he's sitting on this pile of cash that he doesn't know what to do with and thinks "I'll run for Governor". His one "accomplishment" is a company that failed. The shareholder's money he took from that company that failed is the money he's using to buy lots and lots of tv ads. Linda McMahon has a lot of problems, but her wrestling company did not fail, it's successful. He's not the worst on the issues. Do Not Want.

Mills is the RINO. He votes with the Democrats. He has name recognition. He's in the State House or Senate, ran for Governor. If Mills wins, the Independent candidate can run to Mills' right and win. He's a Dede Republican, considered Liberal. Do. Not. Want.

Here are the 3 guys who likely won't win. Poliquin is acting like he's being paid by Otten to say things about Otten that are technically wrong in some way so that Otten can deny the substance of the message, which is Otten is a terrible manager. He even looks like a weasel. "Hey, get me a guy who looks like a weasel who can say American Skiing declared bankruptcy, so we can claim that "that american skiing stuff that you heard about was all lies" for weeks on end in mailers." And then they got Poliquin. Beardsley is a conservative, a good guy, my second choice. An academic, which isn't quite a big plus. Solid on the issues. Beardsley and LePage share support to some degree. If Beardsley dropped out, it'd probably help LePage, but not necessarily. Jacobson also seems like a decent guy, not as conservative. But a decent guy. I find that he's pretty charismatic. I think he comes across well on tv. With an adjustment of political philosophy he could challenge again - perhaps Snowe or Collins, or go for US Rep first. I'd put him up there right after LePage in the category of people on this list who could challenge Snowe or Collins.

Thanks. I like Beardsly right now, but I haven’t been following this at all.

Beardsley is a strong conservative but he lacks the experience that Paul LePage has. He’d make a great appointment within a LePage administration. Mills is indeed a RINO and Abbott’s long association with Collins makes him someone I could just not vote for.

This house is all for LePage. I’m kind of surprised that this race has not gotten any national attention. LePage would be a real game changer for Maine, one that is sorely needed given Maine’s current shipwreck status.

I think it’s important to Freepers, not just Maine Freepers, because we really need qualified talent to beat Snowe or Collins in the Primary. Not only qualified, but willing to take on Snowe or Collins. I would almost guarantee that Abbott wouldn’t challenge Collins in the Primary. And it would be extremely unlikely that he would challenge Snowe. So, Republicans would be intentionally giving their showcase spot, the ideal stepping stone for a Republican to challenge Snowe or Collins, to someone who would not challenge them, if they nominate Abbott. They should not do that, if they want to see Snowe and/or Collins defeated.

If there’s a debate, or some method to find out information from a candidate, I’d like to see the 7 candidates answer the question:

Would you challenge Snowe or Collins in the Republican Primary?

I bet a lot of people would like the answer to that, and it would create a very clear way to see exactly where these candidates stand on RINO v Conservative. I would guess that he would say yes, at least to Collins. (There’s something in his background about Snowe’s husband, the SATs, and French that could effect his willingness to challenge Snowe. LePage would be 2 years into his term the next time Snowe is up, so he wouldn’t challenge her then. Maybe Snowe, if she won in 2012, would not want to run in 2018. The more likely contest for LePage is Collins in 2014. LePage will be ending his term and could move directly from “popular governor to First term senator. I would guess that being the incumbent governor would really give you certain advantages in a Republican Primary.

So, whether it’s LePage or someone else, I would think that willingness to challenge Snowe or Collins would be something that Conservative / Tea Party / Grass Roots voters in Maine would really want. And by the looks of the new Maine GOP Platform, it looks like there are a lot of Tea Party people in Maine.

I’m not really sure what this particular story would be. Boy, there sure are a lot of candidates on the Republican side? Isn’t it amazing that a candidate can get the nomination with that low a percentage? There isn’t even a poll on this. Governors races have less of a clear national consequence. Control of the House, control of the Senate have clear national implications. The Governor of Maine effects Maine, mostly. And theres no one running on either side, R or D, that anyone living outside of Maine has ever heard of.

The Snowe / Collins challenger theory is probably the best hook to get anyone to care outside of Maine. If there weren’t tea partier v RINO battles all over the place, maybe Maine would get more attention. The Maine GOP Platform did get attention, and the story, rightly, was Tea Party Takes Over Maine GOP.

I think that the Obama administration/regime is resulting in a lot of 10th amendment thinking by the states. We’re seeing it with ObamaCare, immigration, etc. LePage is a strong advocate of states rights and that will have a bigger effect (or at least strong countering effect) to the twisted sisters.

I’m not sure exactly what you mean, but I definitely agree that LePage is a good Constitutionalist / 10th A / States Rights guy.

What I was saying before was that people outside of Maine might not be as interested in the outcome because the outcome doesn’t effect people outside of Maine, except as it brings a strong potential challenger to Snowe / Collins much closer to filling out his credentials. Snowe and Collins effect the laws of everyone. The Maine Gov’s race is interesting intrinsically, but it’s a bit confusing to explain. How can you really write a story explaining all the strands of this? 7 Republicans, 4 of whom have a reasonable chance to get the nomination. No polling data.
The storyline of this election at least in the primaries is tea party vs RINO. Unless something completely unexpected happens, like one of the candidates blowing out the others, you can’t really draw any conclusions. Or, you can draw any conclusion you want. If LePage gets 35% and wins, what do you say? How about if LePage gets 35% and loses? Do you say the same thing? I’m in Maine now, but I’ve never followed a race as closely as this in Maine and I can’t really make any prediction at all, and the election is 12 days away. If LePage wins it’s Tea Party candidate wins. Abbott wins it’s establishment candidate wins. Mills is RINO wins (but they could say establishment wins). Otten is Otten buys election. But that’s easy, how do you go further than that? There were all these candidates and no one had a clue for sure who was popular who wasn’t. People are talking about “electability”, “ideology”, how to balance the two, no one knows which candidate is taking support from other candidates.

I just started paying attention to the Delaware Senate race, which could be interesting. O’Donnell - Sarah Palin of the East - vs Castle - one of the hugest RINOs. Schiff v McMahon in Ct. could also be interesting.