Governor Paul LePage is a Tea Party guy who has twice been elected governor of Maine. He prevailed each time in a three-way split.
As Peter Greene notes, Governor LePage is known for his bizarre statements. Among other things, he refused to attend an event honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. Day:
One of his first acts as governor was to refuse to attend a Martin Luther King Day breakfast and, when called on it, to tell the NAACP to kiss his butt. He also undid decades of environmental reguations, and took down a mural of labor history in the capitol, comparing it to North Korean brainswashing. He sabotaged a $120 million wind power plan.
He has gone through six education commissioners in three years. The last nominee might have had some trouble getting approved by the State Senate because he is a creationist.
Governor LePage is a strong supporter of charter schools, choice, digital learning, and competency based education (nonstop assessment by computers). He views public schools with contempt.
Early on in his first term, he embraced Jeb Bush’s digital learning plan and set about implementing it. One of the best exposes of our time was written by Colin Woodard about “The Profit Motive behind Virtual Schools in Maine.” That’s when many people recognized that the tech companies were giving money to Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Educational Excellence, and FEE was promoting the tech companies’ products. And it was all about profit.
Greene thinks that Governor LePage may crown himself King of Maine. One hopes that he will have only one opponent in the next election. He is an embarrassment to the state of Maine.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
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Poor Maine school kids. This is the guy who handed his public schools over to Jeb Bush’s lobby shop and it would have gone all the way but for ONE newspaper reporter. One person.
I see lots and lots of cheap computer instruction in their future!
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Hate to say it, but he was elected by the people. Citizens must start voting!
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It is hard to believe that he was the best choice out of the three candidates. He must be good at running a slogan campaign-flag, Mom, and apple pie-while keeping his actions hidden from the public.
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LePage’s election, like that of John Kasich’s, reflects negatively on the political structure
in states.
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He claims his comments were taken out of context ….
“If you want a good education in Maine, and I get criticized by my opponents because I’m hard on education, but if you want a good education go to an academy. If you want a good education go to private schools. If you can’t afford it, tough luck. You can go to the public school.”
http://bangordailynews.com/2012/11/09/politics/lepage-attacked-again-for-comments-critical-of-maines-public-schools/
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How great is it that we all pay thousands of public employees to attack the public schools they’re supposed to be “improving”?
This is now a legitimate career option- take a job in the public sector and make it your job to eradicate the same public sector entity you’re hired (and paid) to run.
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In these three way elections, were the other two choices actually worse than LePage—after all voters are often offered only difficult choices and must vote for the lesser evil or what they think is the lesser evil after the usual misleading, lying Tsunami of media propaganda?
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You’re missing the best LePage quote.
I’m too tired to look it up, but LePage recently got in trouble for talking about black drug traffickers — “guy with names like D-money, Smoothie, Shifty” — from New York City have been swarming the state, hooking people on heroin and other drugs.
According to LePage … I’m not making this up, folks … while visiting “The Pine Tree State” on their heroin-spreading sprees, these black clockers then proceed to seduce and impregnate Maine’s teenage white girls.
I guess that’s just an extra service they perform… you know, just for kicks, I suppose … to further stick it to “Whitey”.
Their multiple missions accomplished, these swarthy predators then head back to New York City, and in the process, leave the state of Maine with the burden of paying welfare for the resulting illegitimate mixed-race babies.
Excuse me … but … WTF? An actual governor of one of our fifty states said all this?
Yep.
Geez, what a racist-KKK-Aryan-Nation-dark-fantasy worldview that permeates this guy’s warped mind.
Wait, here’s that story, with an embedded video of the exact comments;
http://www.pressherald.com/2016/01/07/lepage-accused-of-making-racist-comment-at-bridgton-meeting/
Oh, and here’s THE YOUNG TURKS weighing in on this… also with video of Le Page’s deranged racism just a few seconds in:
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This racist governor will keep selling his name as an inane Brain Drain of Maine.
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