11/12/98
The Independents are happy. The Democrats are jubilant. The
media is joyously self-impressed. Their man Angus, Maine's
political lion king, has been enthroned as ditto governor of the
State of Two Maines.
And once again with a sycophantic Democratic majority
legislature, King will be a Republican disenfranchise budget
threat to any minority tax cutting Republican initiatives in the
119th Legislature. With the same liberal majority legislature
that has increased the state budget half a billion dollars in the
past two years, once again, spending will be rampant.
Some 3,000 new bills will come before the new legislature and
almost all will require funding. The Republican minority, as
during the first King Administration, will be helpless to stop
the spending of increasing tax revenues. King in his first
inaugural promised to reduce taxes and provide economic security.
Instead, Mainers are now the fourth highest taxed citizens in the
country (up from 8th) and among the lowest of incomes.
And it can be expected that the state's mainstream media will
again be shamefully acting as King lobbyists instead of objective
news organizations.
So how did Angus King get nearly 60% of the gubernatorial vote?
It's fairly simple.
The media has been shilling for King over the past four years
with scant mention of King's political gimmicks and aberrations
such as disenfranchising the Republicans, nearly half the
legislature, from the budget process.
Also, such as the stiffing of all Maine citizens by refusing to
send some $138 million of State House and prison bonds to
referendum. It was King's bill, enacted by Democrats, that
created this gimmicking, and even perhaps illegal, shunting of
constitutional democracy.
When King was running for governor in 1993 he spoke before the
Camden Rotary Club on gimmicks in government, specifically on
selling 16 miles of the Maine turnpike to "itself," the
state government. King told the Rotarians, "That's illegal
in private business. If you did that, you get a rather unfriendly
call from the attorney general."
What a difference incumbency makes. Gov. King's $138 million
gimmick Grand Hoteling the State House and building a new prison
by issuing bonds not through the constitutionally provided public
referendum, but solely on the legislative majority (Democrats)
order and then paying the bonds off by the legislature as State
House "tenants" using the state's general fund to
amortize the debt.
Perhaps somebody should have called the attorney general.
The media failed miserably in not investigating King's four-year
ongoing, and perhaps illegal, "Making a Difference"
coalition which was really a political action committee raising
funds while an incumbent. Some $40,000 was collected but the
media ignored the unique PAC which the ethics commission staff
questioned as to its legality.
King's fund raising coalition was cozy with HKS, Inc. of
Brunswick whose principals were the governor and his wife. HKS
was totally integrated with King's coalition doing bookkeeping
services and charging rent, phone, mailing and other services in
support of the governor and his administration over the past
years.
Jacqueline Hewitt, wife of King's former chief of staff, Chuck
Hewitt, became a weekly $1,038 employee of the coalition and
whose prime responsibility was to write, edit and mail a brochure
which asked for donations to MDC in amounts ranging from $25 to
$500.
This was happening right under the noses of especially the State
House press which refused to investigate and publish the full
story.
With a plausibly illegal ongoing 4-year fund raiser in operation,
with King's millions received from Central Maine Power in some
kind of buy-out of his neophyte energy company (raising his
potential political war chest of a Pine Tree Legal indigent
attorney to an overnight multi-millionaire) and the state media
in his pocket no wonder that neither Republicans nor Democrats
wanted to take on King in this year's election.
And so when King runs on his forte, populistic ceremonial mush,
he wins. But his popularity is enhanced by the media which fails
at election time to mention that when King runs on specific
substantial issues such as the forestry compact and gay rights,
he gets hammered by the same public.
King is now a dangerous, big spender, political lame duck. But
what is equally egregious is that the Democrats and the media
especially have scalped their credibility heritage for a front
row pew at the King coronation.