ROCKLAND — American flags waved, confetti exploded and a brass band played Saturday during Republican gubernatorial candidate Paul LePage’s old-fashioned whistle-stop campaign tour of midcoast Maine.
LePage, along with GOP congressional candidate Dean Scontras and about 80 supporters and other passengers, rode the Maine Eastern Railroad down the midcoast starting in Rockland at 9 a.m., stopping in Wiscasset, Bath and Brunswick. The candidates were met by dozens of sign-carrying supporters at each stop who enthusi-astically cheered them and their message of fiscal responsibility.
“We need to send common sense to Augusta,” LePage said at his first stop in Wiscasset, “and send all those liberal Democrats to the unemployment lines.”
After that speech, the tour’s traveling band, Downeast Brass, struck up “Happy Days Are Here Again,” and one man pushed close to the gubernatorial candidate to shake his hand.
“Tres bien, monsieur,” he told LePage, whose first language was French.
One supporter, Kathleen Schofield of Waldoboro, said she found the whistle-stop campaign tour “really energizing.”
“It more strongly establishes my commitment to conservative candidates,” she said.
The event, which lasted more than six hours, doubled as a campaign fundraiser for LePage and Scontras, though campaign officials said they didn’t yet know how much had been raised.
Some aboard the train paid $700 or more for the privilege of riding in the candidates’ parlor car, including Linda Bean of Linda Bean’s Perfect Maine lobster company.
“He’s a self-made man,” she said of LePage. “I think his potential to win is quite big.”
That thought was echoed all the way to Brunswick among the fiscal conservatives, self-described Tea Party members and others who came out to support LePage, who handily won his party’s seven-way primary in June. LePage, the mayor of Waterville and general manager of Marden’s, a chain of surplus and salvage stores, has a compelling biography. He was one of 18 children in an impoverished family and left home at age 11, spending two years on the streets of Lewiston before he found two adoptive families to help care for him, according to his website.
“I like what he stands for,” said Marlene Hempstead of Litchfield, who came to the Brunswick campaign stop wearing a shirt proclaiming “American Patriot.” “I like the fire he’s building in Maine.”
At each stop, LePage talked about his commitment to improving education, welfare reform and streamlining government and health care, and he tapped into his supporters’ obvious frustration with state and national politics, with disparaging comments about “Obamacare,” or health care reform, along with strong thoughts about the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.
LePage told each crowd that if he were elected governor, he would work to get people off state aid.
“It is disgusting to have caseworkers in Augusta telling people how to stay on welfare,” he said in Brunswick.
A woman in the crowd loudly agreed.
“Fire ’em,” she shouted.
Dean Scontras, an alternative-energy businessman and college football standout originally from Kittery, used some plays from the GOP book to help whip up the crowds at each stop. He is running against Democratic incumbent Chellie Pingree of North Haven for Maine’s 1st District congressional seat.
“This is the most important election in a lifetime,” he said at the Brunswick stop. “All we need is 39 seats in the United States House of Representatives to take the gavel out of Nancy Pelosi’s hand. From the bottom of the ticket to the top of the ticket, Maine’s freedom is at stake.”
In a media interview aboard the train before any of the stops, the candidates expanded on many of their views.
Scontras said he is not a party activist and has always been an outsider who is willing to buck the national leadership on issues.
“I think Republicans need to stop saying no, no, no, no, no,” he said. “I think it’s time for Republicans to do a refresher on leadership.”
He said that Maine politicians, such as U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, have a history of being well-informed on the issues and on speaking for themselves.
“I think if you try to be a red-meat Republican, you’ll go down in flames,” Scontras said.
If elected, he said, his primary goal would be to improve the economy, create jobs and reduce government spending and the growing national debt.
“There is a role for government to play in infrastructure,” he said.
Scontras also said he is opposed to the ongoing wars, and that he disagreed with President Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. He said he would be willing to wait another year in Afghanistan before withdrawing those troops, but that it’s time to end the U.S. military presence in Iraq.
“It’s time to come home; $11 billion a month is way too much,” he said. “I will start beating the drum. It’s just costing too much money. … We shouldn’t have gone in, and it’s time to come home.”
LePage talked more about his policy ideas, including welfare reform.
He said he would not want to cut the “entire” DHHS, but is very interested in reducing welfare costs.
“It takes away someone’s self-reliance and keeps them in economic slavery,” he said.
LePage said he would like to institute a tiered system, which would give aid recipients more incentive to find work. He also would like to see a five-year “lifetime limit” on receiving welfare.
LePage also discussed his interests in eliminating unsuccessful state programs, enhancing successful ones, reducing the control of state regulatory agencies, limiting red tape and buying hydropower from Quebec and other energy alternatives, including nuclear energy.
“I am going to base my administration on common sense and technology,” LePage said.
When asked about the possibility of racism in the Tea Party — an issue that has made national headlines recently — LePage answered that he doesn’t know very much about the Tea Party.
“Except that if they support me, I’ll accept them,” he said. “I have not seen one iota of racism in the state of Maine by tea partiers.”
As for racism in Maine, LePage, who adopted a black son from Jamaica, said that there’s a lot, and recalled the Ku Klux Klan’s rallies in the early 20th century against French-Canadian Catholics in Maine.
LePage said Arden Manning, executive director of the Maine Democratic Party, has made comments on blogs saying LePage would not make a good governor because he’s of French-Canadian Catholic background.
Manning gave a flat denial to that idea.
“I don’t know where Paul LePage is coming up with this,” Manning said in a telephone interview Sunday.
He added that he does believe LePage’s stated support of teaching creationism in schools means that he is “out of step” with Maine voters.
“We have a lot of questions about where Paul LePage stands,” Manning said. “It seems that, instead of responding to questions about his record, he’s decided to go after me personally. At the end of the day, we need a governor who can handle criticism of his positions and not go after the critic personally. This shows that he’s not ready to lead.”
When LePage was asked Saturday about his views on creationism, he answered that he did not really know what creationism is.
“Knowledge is power,” he said. “I am running for governor, not pope. I believe my religion is not anybody’s business.”