Paul LePage Threatens to Run for Senate

The ever-belligerent Maine governor doesn’t think he’d be a very good senator, but is thinking about running — or maybe appointing himself — anyway. Photo: Derek Davis/Press Herald via Getty Images

Amidst all the general caterwauling about a broken Washington and a broken Congress, there’s now hope on the horizon for a breath of fresh air in the U.S. Senate, one who would give Americans the kind of calm, reasonable, pragmatic voice they crave: Paul LePage. Per the Boston Globe:

Maine’s Republican governor says he’s strongly considering running for the U.S. Senate, but also feels he ‘‘wouldn’t make a very good legislator.’’
Gov. Paul LePage made the comments on a radio appearance on WGAN-AM on Thursday morning. The two-term governor is termed out of his current job in 2018 and he has been the source of speculation about his next move.

Most of said speculation has revolved around a 2018 LePage challenge to Senator Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats. He’s considering it, even though he doubts he would be good at the job and is concerned committee meetings “would be boring.”

Since he’s not that jazzed about the gig, perhaps LePage should make a Senate run conditional on someone talking Eliot Cutler into running as well — Cutler’s two independent candidacies for governor aided LePage’s election in 2010 and reelection in 2014 by pluralities.

There is possibly a different, easier route for LePage to get from Augusta to Washington: Senator Susan Collins has been openly talking about returning to Maine next year and running to succeed LePage. If she won, under current state law LePage would get to appoint someone to finish the last two years of Collins’s Senate term. He might find the most qualified candidate to be the belligerent man staring back at him from the mirror.

Paul LePage Threatens to Run for Senate