AUGUSTA — Richard Ashcroft is unhappy with the eight Republican state senators who wrote an opinion piece that ran Monday in Maine newspapers, criticizing Gov. Paul LePage for his caustic remarks and saying he has created too many distractions.

Ashcroft, a tea party activist from Richmond, calls the senators the “gang of eight.”

On Saturday, after he heard about plans to publish the piece, he dispatched an angry email to the Maine Republican Party.

“We put LePage and the Republican majority in office to get this state back on the right track and away from the socialist agenda that we have lived with for MANY years!!,” he wrote. “Please STOP this gang of 8 before they completely destroy what we have gained!”

While Republican legislators and party officials downplayed the opinion piece Monday, saying the GOP remains united behind LePage’s political agenda, Ashcroft and other conservative activists were clearly agitated.

Conservative media outlets and online forums operated by tea party groups were dominated by criticism of the eight Republicans, who were ridiculed for being “weak-kneed” and “mutinous R.I.N.O.s” – Republicans In Name Only.

The party even was lambasted for lacking the discipline of Democrats, a comparison that would have been laughable in November, when Maine Democrats lost control of the Senate, the House and the governor’s office in one election.

Kandi-Lee Hoy, 49, a Republican from South Portland, said she and many of her conservative friends like LePage’s blunt and plainspoken style. What they don’t like, she said, are the “whiners,” which is how she described the senators who signed their names to the opinion piece. She said they should be more aggressive in Augusta, not apologizing for the leader of their party.

“We want them to go up to Augusta to turn the state around, not to go up there and make friends,” she said.

On the “Ray & Ted Show,” a conservative talk show on WLOB radio in Portland, 80 percent of the callers Monday were critical of the authors.

The show launched “Operation Kleenex” and urged listeners to mail boxes of tissues to the State House. “If they are going to whine in public, I want to make sure they’re going to have soft tissues to dry their eyes,” said co-host Ray Richardson.

Richardson said LePage apologized to Republican senators at a closed-door caucus meeting Thursday, and it was “bad form” for the eight to air their criticism in public.

He said LePage’s opponents will take advantage of what appears to be a split in the Republican Party. “They’ll say, ‘Look, even the Senate Republicans don’t agree with their governor.’ It’s a poor strategic move.”

In their piece, which ran in papers including The Portland Press Herald, the eight Republican senators criticized LePage for making what they described as demeaning comments about Maine citizens, and urged him to adopt a more civil tone.

“Were these isolated incidents, we would bite our collective tongues, because we are all human and make mistakes. But, unfortunately, they are not isolated but frequent. Therefore, we feel we must speak out,” the piece says.

The piece was written by Sen. Roger Katz of Augusta and Sen. Brian Langley of Ellsworth. Six other senators added their names to it: Thomas Saviello of Wilton, Chris Rector of Thomaston, Nichi Farnham of Bangor, Earle McCormick of West Gardiner, Roger Sherman of Houlton and Thomas Martin of Benton.

Twelve Republican senators did not sign on to the piece.

LePage also met with House Republicans on Thursday, and apologized to them for making statements that have caused distractions, said Rep. Jeffrey Timberland, a conservative freshman Republican from Turner.

While he and other House Republicans have some of the same concerns as the eight senators, he said, he didn’t think they had to go public with them.

“If I have a problem with you, I should call you and have that discussion,” Timberland said. “I don’t need to make it public knowledge.”

The eight senators received support Monday from Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster. He noted that the piece was critical only of LePage’s tone, not his policies.

Webster said the senators are simply representing their districts, and are hearing concerns from constituents that lawmakers are being distracted and aren’t focusing on what’s important.

“They don’t want us to spend our time talking about things that don’t matter,” Webster said.

He said many Republican legislators are getting the same complaints from constituents and agree with those who put their names on the piece. “Frankly,” he said, “it could have been a much larger list.”

 

MaineToday Media State House Writer Tom Bell can be contacted at 699-6261 or at: tbell@mainetoday.com