UPDATE: Gov. Paul LePage blames media for controversy over remark

Gov. Paul LePage made national news Thursday for saying out-of-state drug dealers “half the time” impregnate young white girls before leaving the state.

During a town hall meeting in Bridgton on Wednesday, the governor described those who come to Maine to sell drugs as “guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty … these types of guys. They come from Connecticut and New York; they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home. Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue we have to deal with down the road.”

The comment can be heard at 1:55:30 on a feed from Lake Region Television.

Lance Dutson, a Republican who owns the website As Maine Goes, condemned LePage on Thursday, saying the comment was racist and “one of the most offensive statements yet from this governor.”

LePage spokesman Peter Steele said the comment was taken out of context.

“The governor is not making comments about race,” Steele said. “Race is irrelevant. What is relevant is the cost to state taxpayers for welfare and the emotional costs for these kids who are born as a result of involvement with drug traffickers. His heart goes out to these kids because he had a difficult childhood, too. We need to stop the drug traffickers from coming into our state.”

Dutson told the Bangor Daily News the implications of the comment were clear, in part because LePage’s statement had to be factually wrong.

“So the question is: Why is he making it up?” Dutson said. “The logical conclusion is that he’s trying to incite that dark kind of fear.”

Phil Bartlett, chairman of the Maine Democratic Party, called the comment “at best, coded racism.”

He added, “We increasingly see Republicans use this overtly racist language and imagery as a national narrative, rather than talking about the merits of public policy. It’s outrageous and should be denounced.”

Bartlett called on all Republicans “to stand up and say this is wrong. It is not acceptable in our public discourse. It’s simply indefensible.”

At the town hall meeting, LePage said he planned to institute more severe penalties for drug crimes, hire more drug agents and spend more money on education in schools to combat the state’s drug problems.

According to the Bangor Daily News, LePage’s comments began as a riff on the street names of alleged drug dealers arrested in Maine. In September, Dionhaywood “Smooth” Blackwell, 31, of New Haven, Conn., was one of five people arrested on felony drug charges after a Bangor heroin bust.

LePage has a history of controversial comments, some of which have involved race. Attendees of a 2013 event in Belgrade reported that he said President Barack Obama “hates white people” and after criticism from the NAACP in 2011, he told them to “kiss my butt.”

It hasn’t hurt him at the ballot box, though: He won re-election in 2014 behind a campaign that embraced his blunt style.

The Maine Republican Party issued only a one-sentence statement on Thursday, with Jason Savage, its executive director, saying, “We do not respond to attacks from disgruntled former staffers,” a reference to Dutson.

The comments gained national attention on Thursday evening, with ABC News, Vox, The Daily Beast and the Huffington Post picking up stories on them.

“The Governor of Maine, Paul LePage, is racist,” tweeted DeRay Mckesson, a civil rights activist and alumnus of Bowdoin College in Brunswick.

Bangor Daily News writer Michael Shepherd contributed to this report.