In case you missed it, Paul LePage yesterday took issue with a reporter from NECN when the reporter pressed him to explain his recent unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud.
“I will tell you what I think about that question," said LePage. "It's like a reporter getting to an accident after it happened. You don't see it. You never see the accident. You were not there. I was.”
LePage's latest outburst, this early in the election cycle, just continues to show that he has not changed like he says—with the Portland Press Herald writing that "The new Paul LePage looks a lot like the old one" and the Bangor Daily News concluding, "Plenty of the old Paul LePage is still there."
Yesterday, the Bangor Daily News exposed LePage for reviving his unsubstantiated election conspiracy theories in a new push for voter ID laws. LePage falsely claimed that Massachusetts residents were bused up to Maine to vote in the 2009 gay marriage referendum. Former Secretary of State Matt Dunlap called it a "blatant lie" while current Secretary of State Shenna Bellows refuted the claim, saying "that's simply not accurate."
When LePage couldn't back up his unsubstantiated claims, he tried to hide from them, with NECN reporting: "Asked about the comments regarding voters being bussed in by NECN & NBC 10 Boston during a different Maine GOP event in Portland on Tuesday, the former governor replied, "I don't know. That's ancient history."
“Since announcing his campaign for governor last year, Paul LePage has tried to trick Maine people into thinking that he’s no longer the man who spent his eight years in the Blaine House attacking them, lying to them, and enacting policies denying them health care, underfunding their schools, and increasing their property taxes,” said Drew Gattine, Chair of the Maine Democratic Party. “Actions speak louder than words—and this is just another example that when it comes down to it, LePage hasn't actually changed at all."
The attack on the reporter joins a long list of LePage belying the claims that he has changed. Over the course of the campaign, he and his campaign have repeatedly lied to the press, slung personal attacks at Governor Mills, and doubled down on the same harmful policies that hamstrung the state when he was in office. As a result, Maine people have seen through his act.