LePage Elected: Maine GOP Fails To Accomplish Total Surrender Objective
Party insiders say a near perfect night of losing was ruined by rural towns that did not get the memo.
Illustration by The Black Fly
AUGUSTA, ME. Maine Republican operatives expressed deep frustration Wednesday after former Gov. Paul LePage declared victory in the 2nd Congressional District, spoiling what aides had privately called the cleanest losing streak in modern party history.
By Wednesday morning, Democrats had held the Blaine House, unseated Sen. Susan Collins and grown their majorities in the Legislature. Party strategists said they were one district away from a clean sweep of defeat when small towns in Aroostook and Piscataquis counties began reporting.
"We had the white flag ironed," said fictional party strategist Roger Thibault, 58, of Waterville, holding the flag in its original fold. "Then some town with forty voters and a moose comes in at two in the afternoon and suddenly we have a congressman. Nobody even told me Township 17 had a polling place."
According to an internal memo described to The Black Fly by a volunteer who had already packed her desk, the Total Surrender Objective called for the party to lose every major race and spend the winter writing a report about it. The report was going to be titled What Went Wrong and had a cover page ready to print.
"Now we have to rewrite the whole thing," said fictional communications aide Kimberly Dube, 31, of Bangor. "You can't call it What Went Wrong when one thing went right. Somebody suggested What Went Mostly Wrong but it doesn't fit on the binder."
LePage told supporters at a Bangor brewery Wednesday that there was "no path to victory" for Democrat Matt Dunlap, though the Associated Press had not yet called the race. Thibault said the remark was hurtful to staff who had worked hard to find no path to victory for anyone.
LePage will be the only Republican in Maine's congressional delegation and the only Republican House member from New England. Party officials said they would treat him as a valued member of the team, and would also check whether that can be undone.
At press time, Thibault had folded the white flag and placed it in a drawer marked 2028, alongside last cycle's white flag, which he said had never been used either.
