Maine Governor: 'Maybe It's Time to Move On'

Paul LePage says he's mulling a resignation, but he hasn't made any final decisions
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 30, 2016 11:03 AM CDT
Maine Governor: 'Maybe It's Time to Move On'
Maine Gov. Paul LePage isn't saying he's resigning, but he isn't saying he isn't.   (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

Paul LePage may have more free time to partake in 1825-style duels soon if he steps down as Maine's governor, floating the latter idea Tuesday on a local radio station while addressing reaction to recent inflammatory statements he's made, per the Portland Press Herald. "I'm looking at all options," he said on WVOM, adding that while people shouldn't read his on-air musings as anything definitive, "if I've lost my ability to help Maine people, maybe it's time to move on." Specifically on the discussion table was a profanity-laced voicemail he left last week for Rep. Drew Gattine, an "unacceptable" diatribe he's now apologizing for. "When I was called a racist I just lost it," he said, adding that that supposed description of him—which Gattine denies calling him—was "like calling a black man the n-word or a woman the 'C' word. It just absolutely knocked me off my feet."

Gattine, for his part, told CNN Monday he thinks LePage "probably needs to get some sort of professional help." The New York Times notes GOP state leaders met first on their own Monday, then with LePage "behind closed doors;" LePage says he needs to confer with his staff before deciding what he'll do next. What the often-controversial governor (the Times helpfully compiles his most well-known incidents) isn't backing down from: the racial assignations he's attributed to arrested drug dealers in his state—specifically, he says 90% of them are black or Hispanic—telling WVOM that "when it comes to meth labs it's all white people from Maine. When it comes to heroin, it's just the opposite. … I spoke fact." His "bottom line": "All lives matter." (LePage's wife may need to pick up a couple extra shifts at McSeagull's if he resigns.)

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