Why doesn’t Paul LePage, governor and sentient toxic-waste spill, behave more like a normal politician? Various commentators have offered a wide range of opinions.

According to conservative radio talk-show host Ray Richardson in his 2014 book “Governor Paul LePage: Rebuilding Maine’s Future” (it’s never clear how LePage could rebuild something that hasn’t happened yet), it’s all the fault of other people: “His sense of urgency can lead him to great frustration. The legislative process can be maddening. Legislators who lack a grasp of the issues, political posturing that is designed to defeat him and supposed allies whose personal ambitions get in the way of the issues at hand can and have led him to the boiling point at times.”

According to Luke Jensen, chairman of the Lewiston Republican City Committee, the governor’s outbursts, such as suggesting the entire Lewiston legislative delegation be executed, are irrelevant. “His methods are messy, but he gets the job done,” Jensen wrote in an op-ed in the Lewiston Sun Journal. “People can think what they want about his methods, but I know he is honest. He is one of us, and we stand behind him.”

Standing behind him is advised during executions to avoid the blood splatter.

Other pols and pundits have been, depending on your perspective, either less kind or more accurate.

“[LePage] is full of the stuff that makes the grass grow green,” was the assessment of author Stephen King, after the governor falsely claimed in March that King no longer pays taxes in Maine.

“A lot of what the governor has done in his four-plus years is put his partisanship and his priorities above getting stuff done, above compromise and above helping people,” state Sen. Justin Alfond of Portland, the Democratic floor leader, was quoted as saying in the May 30 Morning Sentinel.

In March, Bangor Daily News political reporter Christopher Cousins offered this astute bit of analysis: “Years of stare-down negotiations in the private sector have conditioned him to seek leverage, not consensus, when working to advance his agenda.”

GOP state Sen. Tom Saviello of Wilton expressed much the same opinion in a June story in the Maine Sunday Telegram: “To his credit, he is the CEO of a company and he calls it the state of Maine. The difference is he doesn’t hire or fire his board of directors or his management team, which is us [in the Legislature]. And that’s a frustration for him. And he hasn’t figured out that we are more than willing to work with him.”

Other members of the governor’s party are supportive of his efforts, even if there’s a slight hint of displeasure with his unproductive approach. House Minority Leader Ken Fredette of Newport gave this excuse in a June story in the Sun Journal: “I think, quite frankly, that the governor has been trying to move the needle on changing the trajectory of what’s been going on in our state for the last four decades. And anytime you try to create change like that it’s extremely tough, particularly when it is not something you can do by yourself.”

After the guv’s State of the State address in February, Republican Senate Majority Leader Garrett Mason of Lisbon gave this quirky observation to the Sun Journal: “One of the things I like most about the governor is he has kind of the same pledge that I do, and that is to make Augusta as inconsequential in everyday Mainers’ lives as he possibly can.”

While LePage has managed on occasion to render himself inconsequential, that was hardly the case when he threatened to withhold state funding unless the private Good Will-Hinckley school in Fairfield fired newly hired president Mark Eves, who also happens to be the Democratic speaker of the Maine House. Eves’ reaction, in a June press release, was understandably negative: “The governor’s actions represent the worst kind of vendetta politics Maine has ever seen.”

Last year, I was asked by the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting for my take on LePage. I tried to reduce my complex analysis to terms even the governor could comprehend. “He’s a boob,” I said.

But nobody understands the LePage psyche better than LePage himself. A veteran political operative told me he talked to the governor at a charity event and asked him why he didn’t try being more gracious toward his opponents in an effort to win some concessions.

LePage’s reply: “I don’t want to.”

Which is also the reason I don’t eat my broccoli or share my toys.

Share your comments by emailing aldiamon@herniahill.net.

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