Maine news, sports, weather | Kennebec Journal, Augusta, Maine

GOP Platform

A fight from the far right

BY DAVID SHARP, Associated Press

PORTLAND -- The conservative takeover of the Maine Republican Party platform has left observers wondering how much influence "tea party" sympathizers will carry in next month's primary and Democrats are calling on the seven GOP candidates for governor to reject the right-leaning plank.

The platform swap orchestrated at the GOP convention last weekend shows that conservatives and tea party sympathizers are organized and motivated in the state, and it represents the first shakeup in the GOP gubernatorial race, said Mark Brewer, a political science professor at the University of Maine.

"It's pretty stunning," he said.

The platform focuses on conservative staples such as cutting spending and paying down debt, maintaining the right to bear arms, upholding the sanctity of life and reaffirming national and state sovereignty.

It declares that health care is not a right, defines marriage as between a man and a woman, and proposes fewer government regulations.

But it also calls for the elimination of the U.S. Department of Education, sealing the U.S. border and auditing the Federal Reserve "as the first step in ending the Fed."

And it refers to the "global warming myth" as well as the promotion of "Austrian Economics."

Attacking those principles, Arden Manning of the Maine Democratic Party called on the GOP gubernatorial hopefuls to reject the platform.

"They can stand with the extreme of their party, which seems to have taken over the Republican Party, or they can stand with the mainstream," he said.

The conservative shift represented a wholesale replacement of the proposed GOP platform, providing some fireworks at a convention in which leaders were preaching unity.

The platform, which invoked the tea party in its preamble, might favor conservative gubernatorial candidates such as Paul LePage, or Bruce Poliquin and Bill Beardsley, who've courted conservatives, Brewer said.

But the reach of the tea party movement is unknown in Maine.

"I'd love to know how big that group is. Is it big enough to win a general election in November? I'd be skeptical of that. Is it big enough to win a Republican primary?" Brewer said. "If that faction lines up solidly behind one candidate in June, is that enough to get it done? I think it could be."

Sandy Maisel, a political science professor at Colby College, agreed that the GOP's reinvigorated conservative wing seems to favor a candidate such as LePage. But, he said, it could lead supporters of other candidates -- Steve Abbott, Les Otten, Matt Jacobson or Peter Mills -- to ramp up their get-out-the-vote effort in a race where turnout is key.

Mills, who's viewed as the most moderate of the Republican candidates, said Tuesday that the GOP platform shows that the party faithful is angry and frustrated with government.

The galvanizing issue is out-of-control spending that has driven up national debt, "and it's an issue that cannot be called extremist because it's a mainstream issue," Mills said.

But he acknowledged that some of the platform's obscure details may be a distraction. Few people who voted on the platform probably had ever heard of the Law of the Sea Treaty, for example.

"They've taken on some issues that take us out into the weeds," he said. "But they are unified and energized by this nation's spiraling into uncontrollable debt obligations that we cannot pay."