Maine's Teabagger Governor Paul LePage Is Feeling Left Out-- So He Tries Another Embarrassing Stunt

Many voters are feeling a great deal of buyers' remorse for having elected some very extremist and anti-family Republican governors and state legislatures. Others are realizing that they made a mistake by staying away from the polls because they were disappointed in Democrats who looked almost as bad as the GOP. "Almost as bad" has turned into a yawning chasm.

[J]ust months after election day, three new Midwestern governors-- Wisconsin's Scott Walker (R), Ohio's John Kasich (R), and Michigan's Rick Snyder (R)-- have seen their approval ratings fall to the point that polls show them losing hypothetical do-over elections with the candidates they beat last year.

And even Republicans in Florida are worried that Rick Scott is more a one man wrecking crew of Florida's future than an actual governor. Chris Christie is getting a second look-- and they're not happy about how things are turning out with their nihilistic new governor.

Tucked all the way in the extreme northeast corner, jutting oddly into Canada, Maine isn't usually in the national spotlight. But the state suffered from the same unfocused anger and paranoia that the rest of the country did in November-- with Democrats and left-leaning independents leaving the field open for stirred up, if clueless, teabaggers. In Maine's case they elected one of their own, Paul LePage, governor (with 38% in a 3-way race) as well as a completely Republican-dominated state legislature. LePage has been stumbling along blindly since then, more a laughing stock than the kind of actual existential menace that characters like Walker, Kasich, Scott, Christie and Snyder have turned into. Yesterday LePage attempted to thrust himself into the national spotlight in a typically symbolic way. He ordered the removal of a 36-foot mural depicting Maine's labor history from the lobby of the Department of Labor.

Worker advocates described the move as a "mean-spirited" provocation amid the administration's high-tension standoff with unions.

Acting labor chief Laura Boyett emailed staff Tuesday about the mural's pending removal, as well as another administration directive to rename several department conference rooms that carry the names of pro-labor icons such as Cesar Chavez.

According to LePage spokesman Dan Demeritt, the administration felt the mural and the conference room monikers showed "one-sided decor" not in keeping with the department's pro-business goals.

"The message from state agencies needs to be balanced," said Demeritt, adding that the mural had sparked complaints from "some business owners" who complained it was hostile to business.

Demeritt declined to name the businesses.

The mural was erected in 2008 following a jury selection by the Maine Arts Commission and a $60,000 federal grant. Judy Taylor, the artist from Seal Cove, said Tuesday that her piece was never meant to be political, simply a depiction of Maine's labor history.

The 11-panel piece depicts several moments, including the 1937 shoe mill strike in Auburn and Lewiston, "Rosie the Riveter" at Bath Iron Works, and the paper mill workers' strike of 1986 in Jay.

According to Taylor, the idea for the panels came from Charley Scontras, a labor historian at the University of Maine.

Taylor said the administration's decision to remove the mural was "terrible." She said her 2007 selection by the Maine Arts Commission was the "commission of a lifetime."
Taylor said she'd never heard that her mural painted an unflattering picture of business.

"There was never any intention to be pro-labor or anti-labor," she said. "It was a pure depiction of the facts."

...Mike Tipping, a spokesman for the Maine People's Alliance, a progressive organization, said LePage had been "elected to create jobs, not to be the state's interior decorator."

"The LePage administration is going after Maine workers on a bunch of different fronts," Tipping said. "I guess 'Rosie the Riveter' is just another casualty."

LePage's budget proposes cuts in retirement benefits for unionized state workers and teachers and LePage is working on proposals to limit the ability of unions to be an effective force for the rights of working families. His plan will gut pensions for thousands of middle class families while preserving his own $26,000 per year pension. Worse yet, he wants to use the "savings" he taking from working people not to fix infrastructure or strengthen education but to spend over $200 million of taxcuts for a small handful of the state's wealthiest families, expanding the estate tax exemption from $1 million to $2 million.

Ben Grant, chairman of the Maine Democratic Party, reminded people yesterday that it's not only public workers who will shoulder the cost of this $203 million tax giveaway to the rich. All working families will suffer. To fund these huge tax breaks for the wealthy, LePage's budget will:

• Cut property tax relief programs for 150,000 families 

• Slash prescription drug benefits for low-income seniors

• Freeze health insurance programs for working families

There is nothing "shared" about this kind of sacrifice, unless it is working Mainers sharing the cost of having Paul LePage as governor.

Maine Democrats, however, continue to pursue common sense legislation that benefits working families and our economic climate. Democrats in the Statehouse have submitted:

• LD 457, An Act to Provide a Liveable Wage for Maine Families, sponsored by Rep. Michael Carey, will adjust Maine's minimum wage to inflation every year.

• LD 686, An Act to Promote Small Business in Maine, sponsored by Rep. Alex Cornell du Houx, will give a property tax exemption to small business owners for the first $75,000 worth of qualifying business equipment.  

• LD 695, An Act to Reduce Taxes and Promote Employment, sponsored by Rep. Elsie Flemmings, will increase the state earned income tax credit from 5% to 10% of the federal credit and make it refundable.

Meanwhile, Republicans in the Maine Legislature have wasted their time and energy on nonsense ideological issues like putting chemicals back into children's toys, stripping away same day registration for voters, and repealing the Maine Clean Elections Act.

LePage is following the same garden variety GOP battle plan that Snyder, Walker, Kasich, Christie, Scott and the rest are using-- and which was laid out yesterday by author Amy Dean laid out at HuffPo yesterday:

The right-wing's strategy is to blame complex economic problems on one of three scapegoats: teachers, immigrants, or government employees. The tactic of scapegoating consistently reappears throughout the history of politics for a reason. It offers politicians an easy way out. Instead of having to come up with real substance for their political agendas, they can tell a simple story with a simple villain. At a time when the country is in grave distress, they can pick out a select group and blame all of our problems on them.

While this strategy has become popular in many Republican statehouses, it is more ridiculous today than ever. The economic problems we face are complex ones. We live in a global economy, where national boundaries that previously shielded our industries have been eliminated and markets are affected by economic decisions made throughout the world. Yet, amid this complexity, conservative leaders insist that things are plain: teachers, immigrants, and government employees are at fault for our woes.

Hiding behind this absurd premise, the right-wing has launched a sneak attack. They are attempting to rush through different statehouses a set of laws that have nothing to do with creating jobs or strengthening the economy. Rather, the laws are about undermining the ability of groups to organize collectively and exercise political influence at the polls. Teachers and government employees, in particular, have been selected because they are some of the last organized voices that oppose an unchecked corporate agenda. They have been strategically targeted because they represent the last vestiges of middle class America.

Will it work in Maine? Well, keep in mind that last November LePage wound up with 218,065 votes, while progressive independent Eliot Cutler took 208,270 and Democrat Libby Mitchell took 109,387. The two Democratic incumbents, Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud got 316,156 votes between them, far more than LePage who is looking like the surest one-termer in the country-- since you can't count Walker, since he's likely to be recalled after one year.

Sending The Democrats A Message... Again-- Let's Hope They Hear It This Time Around

... and those stupid Blue Dogs believe it

Yesterday I spent my day on two unrelated organizing calls with groups of progressives Inside the Beltway. (I was on the phone from DWT world headquarters... tweeting.) Each group had well-meaning presentations about how to elect Democrats in 2012. And each time I reacted by pointing out that it's time to stop thinking about "Democrats" as our friends. Yes, Republicans are the sworn enemies of American working families and lackeys for selfish, avaricious corporate managers. Yes, Republicans are almost always worse. And, yes, we have to work with Democrats to push forward a family-friendly progressive agenda. But electing whatever monstrosity shows up in a blue t-shirt is what the DCCC does, not what progressives should be doing. If resources were unlimited, a strategic case could be made for helping elect Blue Dogs and other conservative Democrats. But resources aren't unlimited and it is far more important to focus them on candidates who believe in a progressive agenda or, next in line, candidates who can be persuaded to support a progressive agenda than on candidates who support conservative and corporate agendas.

It's depressing enough for progressive donors to make contributions to outfits like the DCCC and then see them spending the bulk of their money on consultants who are working for Democrats who vote more frequently, at least on contentious issues, with John Boehner than with Nancy Pelosi. When the Republican-controlled House voted to pass Mike Pence's amendment to defund Planned Parenthood, it wasn't a strict party-line vote. The toxic amendment passed 240-185, with 7 Republicans voting with the Democrats (Bass, Judy Biggert, Mary Bono Mack, Charlie Dent, Robert Dold, Rodney Frelinghuysen, Richard Hanna) and 10 Democratic anti-choice fanatics-- most of that breed were defeated in November-- crossing the aisle in the other direction to vote with Pence and Boehner. Who were they? Mostly the usual suspects:

Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK)
Jerry Costello (IL)
Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN)
Dan Lipinski (IL)
Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC)
Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
Nick Rahall (WV)
Silvestre Reyes (TX)
Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR)
Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC)

And see that last name on the list-- Rahm's greatest hit? Heath Shuler, heavily financed by the worst Republican type corporate interests is out, with the cooperation of DCCC Chair (and "ex"-Blue Dog) Steve Israel, recruiting conservatives and fellow anti-choice, antigay fanatics just like himself, to run in primaries against progressives, populists and grassroots Democrats.

Blue Dogs aren’t going to leave recruiting and fundraising for 2012 up to the Minority Leader.

“We’re the ones who are going to have to go and recruit,” said Shuler, who unsuccessfully challenged Pelosi for Minority Leader last year and secured 11 votes against her on the floor during last week’s Speaker vote. “A big part of what we do is to help build our coalition.”

[Jim] Matheson said the Blue Dog PAC will be more robust in the 2012 cycle, focusing more heavily than before on recruitment and support of Blue Dog candidates across the country.

Blue America would like to ask your help to send a message to Democrats, the only kind of message Inside the Beltway power figures understand. Please check out the page and see if it's something you want to be a part of. (We even have our first candidate up for the new year.)

Amy Dean is an author and union activist on behalf of social change. You can probably imagine that she hasn't been happy about Scott Walker's jihad against public sector unions.

The actions of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and other elected leaders who are following his lead speak to a striking failure of leadership: We live in an economy that has undergone massive transformations over the past several decades. Yet, instead of reckoning with the impact of these changes and understanding state-level budget troubles in light of a larger economic crisis, many of our elected officials want us to believe that states are facing difficulties for a simple reason-- because of greedy public employees.
 
This notion is absolutely ridiculous. If we are going to come to terms with what is happening in Wisconsin and other states where governors are launching attacks on working people disguised as efforts to deal with budget issues, we must look at a wider picture. While the particulars of each individual battle are important, in the end this is not about one state. It is about confronting the disturbing tendency among our lawmakers to seek scapegoats rather than real solutions to our nation's most central problems. 
 
Any analysis of our common economic situation that blames middle class public employees for states' woes-- and that sees eliminating their rights as a viable solution-- overlooks a straightforward and challenging reality. We have an economy that, in the last thirty years, has gone through some of the most fundamental macroeconomic change we have seen since the transition from the agrarian economy into an industrial economy. We are now in a post-industrial economy, where the rules of competition have changed. Our goods and services are no longer insulated by national boundaries or protected by restrictive trade rules.
 
Yet while the working world has been turned on its head as a result of this massive macroeconomic shift, our social institutions-- our government, our labor laws, our educational systems-- have not changed to catch up. Perhaps most significantly for the states, our tax and fiscal policy have not been updated for decades.
 
Nobody disputes that we have massive rising deficits and budget challenges that need to be addressed. But blaming the people who provide health care, education, and vital public services is not the way out of these problems. Instead, we must hold our leaders to a higher standard and demand from them a substantive response to a changed economic reality.
 
Specifically, rejecting the politics of scapegoating and moving towards real solutions involves three things:

Reform our tax and fiscal structures

Higher expectations of our elected leaders

Build for the future

She does into great depth about each solution at Huffington Post and I recommend reading it. But I want to point out, again, that the enemy of working families isn't just Republicans; it's conservatives and reactionaries. Most of them are Republicans but in the hope of building a Big Tent to encompass everyone, the Democrats have muddied the water to the point where voters don't even know what they stand for-- if they stand for anything. Amy's call, for example, for higher expectations of our elected leaders certainly has as much to do with Democrats as it does with Republicans. Which has a lot to do with why we re-launched the Sending Democrats A Message page and why we picked our first candidate. Hint: she's a proven fighter for the progressive agenda and her opponent is a Democratic Machine hack backed by all the worst elements inside the Democratic Establishment.