Three potential and two declared Republican candidates for Governor of Maine shared a dais in Old Orchard Beach on Thursday evening to take part in what WLOB 100.5 host Ray Richardson called a “job interview,” organized by Common Sense of Maine, a newly formed political action group. The forum marked a beginning of what will be a primary season lasting just over a year, and came together with recent developments on the other side of the partisan aisle as the Democrat field begins to take shape.
Robert “Bobby” Charles and Robert Wessels have both already declared their candidacies for Maine’s top political job, and on Thursday they were joined by possible candidates David Jones, Garrett Mason, and Owen McCarthy. In a collegial tone consistent with Ronald Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment, “Thous shalt not speak ill of thy fellow Republican,” the men took the opportunity to introduce themselves to an audience of nearly 250 activists from around the state.
Charles, a Wayne native and former naval intelligence officer, has worked extensively in federal roles in the executive and legislative branches serving under three Republican presidents and as an advisor to GOP House leadership in Congress. As assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement, he worked to combat foreign drug cartels and said he would bring this experience back home to Maine to eradicate the deadly grip drugs have here within 24 months, he pledged.
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Wessels, a former Paris selectman, has been running for governor the longest — nearly eighteen month — yet is arguably the least well known of the crew assembled at the Dunegrass County Club on Thursday. In this period, he’s ridden a scooter from Fort Kent to Kittery meeting fellow Mainers along the way and said that today people are finally “talking about subjects that were taboo a year and a half ago.” After introducing himself, Wessels called for a “unified front” among all Republican candidates.
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Jones, a Falmouth real estate executive and owner of F.O. Bailey, a brokerage that is one of Maine’s oldest small businesses, recalled how he launched a Make Maine Great Again campaign in 2016 and drew the Biblical allegory of David and Goliath to describe the challenge Republicans in the state face over the coming year. When he called for a DOGE to review the state’s government, Jones sparked a resounding applause from the audience. Later, when discussing the obstacle housing developers face in Maine, Jones got the crowd laughing about how the discovery of “vernal pools of fairy shrimp” can render land tracks unusable due to strict zoning laws.
Mason, a former leader of the Maine Senate and gubernatorial primary candidate in 2018, recalled his political origins with the Maine Tea Party in 2010 and coming to Augusta with then newly-elected Governor Paul LePage and Republican majorities in both houses of the legislature and encountering a deep state of entrenched Democrats who were crying in the corridors. He said for him the last seven years have been difficult to watch and that the solutions to the problems vexing Maine are “staring us in the face, and we just need the courage to reach out and grab them.”
McCarthy, like Wessels, is a political newcomer who founded a medical technology company and spoke about how hard it can be to do business in Maine. A Patten native, he said he is likely to join the race to help create a “fighting chance for working class families.” Raised by a logger and a school lunch lady, McCarthy said he’s personally familiar with the daunting obstacle most Mainers face just trying to get by, and that these can be addressed by bringing a private sector perspective to Augusta.
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Richardson asked each of the prospective candidates to talk about their approach to the child welfare crisis in Maine — recognizing former Democrat state senator and secretary of state Bill Diamond, an ardent advocate for fixing the failing system, who was also present in the audience — as well what to do about the Department of Health and Human Services, the housing shortage, and current plight of education in Maine.
In responding to these issues, Charles demonstrated perhaps the tightest message discipline as he repeated his campaign was based on fighting crime, cutting taxes, and fixing schools, which he worked into every answer. When he said the state should seize illegal marijuana grow houses and give them to homeless vets, the room erupted in raucous approval.
Mason showed the greatest familiarity with Augusta’s machinations as he highlighted which programs worked and which didn’t. He proposed doing away with the Office of New Americans and creating in its stead an office of Governor’s liaison with school boards to empower local elected officials who have been cowed by “an unnamed,” powerful law firm that keeps telling Maine school boards to comply with what they’re told.
Like Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Wessels’ humble affect was based on earnestness and positive intentionality. He expressed astonishment at how Governor Janet Mills, in her most recent State of the Budget address, hailed the record number of Mainers on Maine Care as an accomplishment.
McCarthy stood out with a fresh approach on health care and aligning education to the needs of the future workplace. Maine Care, he said, “should be a trampoline, not a hammock.” He also said businesses need more of a voice in how Maine’s youth are educated and spoke to pressing personnel needs in both health care and education.
Absent at Thursday night’s round-up was another likely entrant to the race, State Senator James Libby (R-Cumberland). Sen. Libby works as a professor at Thomas College and currently sits on the legislature’s Education and Cultural Affairs Committee. Libby is the first of any announced candidates to register to run as Maine Clean Elections Act candidate, as he did in 2002.
Richardson and Common Sense Maine founder Dov Sacks said they would continue to hold candidates forums in the coming months as the GOP gubernatorial field continues to take shape.
