A state senator who was a Republican before he decided the only ostensible way to win the governor’s office was to declare his “independence” is what Maine Republicans ought to look like because that’s how they used to be, the Portland Press Herald has declared.
Rick Bennett, running as an “independent,” chose a friendly audience to preach to the choir – a Somali rally in Democrat-heavy Lewiston.
Three days after the Saturday rally, Bennett posted on his Facebook page a fawning column praising him for “showing main Republicans there’s another way.”
Steve Collins, the Press Herald’s alleged political columnist who when elevated to that perch announced what everybody already knew – that he is a Democrat – writes that “Bennett stood out on Saturday because he wasn’t another Democrat. It was as if he stepped out of a history book and onto the stage.”
“In Maine, we look after each other,” Bennett was quoted as saying. “It’s how we live.”
Bennett enjoyed blasting President Trump for recently calling Somalis garbage, saying that “does not reflect Maine values, and it does not reflect the kind of country and the kind of state that we want to pass on to our children.”
Other than comparing himself to other politicians he claims represent what he does, Bennett didn’t offer any specifics on how to improve your lives.
Will he make sure legitimately poor Maine citizens stand at the front of the line for Medicaid benefits or will he allow illegals to push their way to making fraudulent claims?
Will he demand Maine’s electric suppliers to change course so that the state doesn’t have the highest electric rates in the country?
Will he demand that the current administration get to the bottom of the Amazon ballot scandal?
Will he protect the life of unborn babies in the third trimester?
Will he draw a line in the sand into refusing to let boys play on girls’ sports teams?
Or will he just speak in platitudes, vaguely telling what he now hopes to be his leftist base how to instruct the rest of us how to run our lives so we can be like him – a meteorological politician who chooses his rhetoric based on who’s listening?
Republican one day, Democrat the next.
Now there’s a winning commitment to principle.
