A Texas-born former FBI agent has joined the crowd of Democrats seeking to become Maine’s next chief executive officer.
Jason Cherry, a lawyer currently living in Unity, said he is focused on increasing government transparency and accountability.
Based on academic credentials alone, statistics are in Cherry’s favor.
Five of the seven Maine governors in the last 50 years have had law degrees, with the exception of Democrat John Baldacci and Republican Paul LePage.
So Maine voters seem, oddly, to have a fondness for lawyers when it comes to choosing their governor.
On the other hand, only one governor in the last half-century – Virginian Angus King – was born outside Maine.
Also, the FBI has taken a drubbing in public opinion nationally since wading into highly-politicized and now-discredited investigations in recent years. A poll last November showed that only 41 percent of Americans currently hold faith in the FBI, which was once one of the federal government’s most trusted institutions.
Luckily for Cherry, most of those 41 percent are Democrats, since they have benefitted – at least in the short term – from the bureau’s ill-considered political adventures.
Before joining the FBI, Cherry was a defense attorney and a conservation officer.
He’s up against a bunch of Democrats, Republicans and independents seeking to succeed two-term-limited Democrat Janet Mills.
Cherry says he wants to create a citizens’ online forum to increase public access to state initiatives, referendums, legislative actions and debates.
He is also calling for a popularly-elected attorney general. Currently, Maine’s constitutional officers, including its top legal beagle, are elected by the legislature.
Cherry’s announcement comes less than a year after he was trounced in a U.S. Senate bid as an independent attempting to unseat incumbent King.
He placed last in that four-way race, receiving just 2.4 percent of the ballots cast.
When Cherry was running against King he acknowledged the odds of his winning.
“The joke is I’ll change my name to Angus King Jr. and hope for the best,” he ribbed just two weeks before the November 2024 Senate election.
Unfortunately for Cherry, a version of that name is already taken in this election cycle. One of Cherry’s Democrat opponents for governor is Angus King III, son of the senator.
A June poll showed the younger King with a huge lead among Democrats who’d announced for governor by then.
So once again Cherry is up against the powerful King dynasty.
His opponents also include another dynastic hopeful – Democrat Hannah Pingree, daughter of Maine’s First District U.S. representative.
