Bellicose ex-governor LePage launches another run in Maine

Former two-term Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who liked to compare himself to former President Donald Trump formally announced Monday that he's launching a campaign for a third term.

LePage has not been shy about criticizing his successor, Democratic Gov. Janet Mills, over fiscal policies and her actions during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Maine faces several challenges and we must work toward building a better future based on individual liberty, fiscal responsibility, and an economy which empowers everyone including our rural communities,” he said in a statement.

There will be a fall campaign kickoff, he said.

The announcement came four days after paperwork was filed with the state ethics commission. Under the Maine Constitution, he was limited to two consecutive terms but could run again after sitting out a term. He’d have to submit additional paperwork with the secretary of state’s office next year.

There’s no love lost between LePage and Mills. They battled when she was attorney general and he was governor. Mills has begun fundraising but hasn’t yet announced whether she’ll be seeking reelection.

LePage, 72, served two tumultuous terms marked by belt-tightening conservatism and bellicose battles with opponents and the media.

He cut taxes, enacted welfare reductions, paid back millions in Medicaid debt to the state’s hospitals and overhauled the pension system.

His policies were often overshadowed by public gaffes by the man who described himself as “Trump before there was Trump.”

He made headlines by telling the Portland chapter of the NAACP to “to kiss my butt,” worrying about asylum seekers spreading the “ziki fly” and suggesting out-of-state drug dealers were impregnating “young white” girls. He left an expletive-lade message for a Democratic lawmaker and proclaimed that another foe gave it to the people “without providing Vaseline.”

It’s unclear how much appetite there is for that style after four years of Trump, who lost his reelection bid. But Trump won one electoral vote in Maine last November, underscoring his popularity in rural Maine.

LePage bid adieu to his home state after leaving office, announcing he was moving to Florida where there was no income tax. He registered to vote there, but moved back to his home state last year. He now lives in Edgecomb.

LePage sometimes blamed his scrappy style on his upbringing in Lewiston, where he said he got pushed around while homeless at age 11.

“I learned one thing very early on in life: If you turn the other cheek, it hurts,” he once told Maine Public.