Governor Leaves Lawmaker ‘Bizarre,’ Vulgar Voicemail

Drew Gattine on Thursday, according to the Portland Press Herald.

Below is a transcript of the voicemail.

After admitting to keeping a creepy binder full of drug dealers’ photos earlier this week, Governor Paul LePage called a state legislator a “cocksucker” in what has to be one of the best political phone calls of the year.

Judging by the voicemail released by the Herald, LePage apparently made a decision to settle the matter by calling Gattine expletives and demanding he “prove” the governor is a racist. You want, I want you to prove that I’m a racist. I want you to prove that I’m a racist. I’ve spent my life helping black people and you little son-of-a-bitch, socialist c-kscuker. You …

“You… I need you to, just friggin”.

“I am after you”, the governor said in the message to Representative Drew Gattine. After he left the voicemail, the governor talked with the Press Herald and a TV station about the situation, confirming he left the voicemail and expressing his desire to engage in an armed duel – à la Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr – to resolve his issues with Gattine. Back in January, at the town hall seen in the video below, LePage was describing Maine’s dire drug problem, characterizing the people who import drugs as “guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty – these types of guys – they come from CT and NY, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home”.

On Friday, Democratic leaders released a joint statement that read, “Paul LePage is not mentally or emotionally fit to hold office”. No matter how angry LePage felt he should have known better than to tell reporters he wanted to shoot a State Rep.in the face. “It sounds a little far-fetched, but I will point it out that whatever drugs they are selling they’re selling to citizens of Maine, and so he may have a market problem”, Malloy said. He maintained that Thursday morning, reporters had asked him to respond to lawmakers calling him racist.

First District Congresswoman Chellie Pingree today stated: “This kind of angry, hate-filled speech has no place in politics or public policy and it’s shocking that the top elected official in our state would use such language”, Pingree said in a statement.

Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap told WMTW News 8 that the governor’s comments and actions do not meet the threshold laid out in the Constitution. Day events, a reporter asked LePage about it.

Gattine has denied that he called the governor racist after his latest diatribe on the racial background of drug dealers in the state.

“… These are guys that are named D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty, these types of guys, that come from CT and NY”. So he said he referred to Gattine as a vulgar name involving oral sex because it was the “worst word” he could think of.

Sandra Trappen, a sociology professor at Hunter College in the City University of NY, wrote in a blog post that many white Americans have the misguided perception that racial equality has gone too far and now they are the victims of discrimination. I mean, it is-we all know that Maine’s a wonderful place full of wonderful people, and it’s bad and embarrassing that this is the message and this is what people are seeing about what Maine politics are like. “What I do care is I want the drug dealers to know I’m after them…”