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Maine's LePage ready to try federal policymaking

Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) is ready to graduate from state policymaking to federal policymaking -- quite possibly in a Trump administration.
Paul LePage
Gov. Paul LePage speaks to reporters shortly after the Maine House and Senate both voted to override his veto of the state budget, Wednesday, June 26, 2013, at the State House in Augusta, Maine.
By most measures, Maine Gov. Paul LePage's (R) tenure hasn't gone especially well. The Tea Party Republican, elected twice after an independent candidate split the center-left in both races, has generally earned a reputation as an offensive buffoon, whose antics often border on repulsive.
 
But as WMTW in Portland reported yesterday, the Maine governor is nevertheless ready for some kind of promotion.

Gov. Paul LePage hopes Donald Trump picks him to be part of his administration if he is elected to office. If not, he'll run against Angus King for U.S. Senate in 2018. That's what the governor said at his town hall meeting in Lewiston on Wednesday night.

"I said earlier that if I'm not into the Trump Administration, I will be running against Angus King," LePage reportedly said. "Now, don't tell my wife. She hasn't said yes yet."
 
In other words, the Maine governor is so confident in his successes as a state policymaker, he's ready to parlay his unique talents into shaping federal policy, too.
 
The Republican didn't specify exactly which job he'd like to have in a Trump administration -- LePage has no real areas of expertise -- and the presumptive Republican nominee, who picked up the Maine governor's endorsement in February, hasn't publicly suggested he expects LePage to be part of his team.
 
And yet, the governor, perhaps tired of his current job and the frequency with which his many vetoes are overturned, is nevertheless daring to dream.
 
Of course, if Trump loses in November -- or, as hard as this may seem to imagine, if a President Trump declines to offer LePage a powerful federal job in Washington -- the Maine Republican will apparently turn his attention to Sen. Angus King's (I) re-election bid in 2018.
 
As the Bangor Daily News reported this week, some progressive activists in Maine believe that would be a terrific idea.
 
"Your opponents deserve the delicious schadenfreude of watching the Hindenberg-level disaster that a LePage Senate campaign will deliver," reads a new MoveOn.org petition.