He quickly walked away from camera after making the explicit analogy, though he returned to say "Damn it, that comment is not politically correct but we've got to understand who this man is. This man is a bad person. He doesn't only have no brains, he has a black heart."
The governor says he offered Democrats a deal they refused to take. "I said, 'I will sign off on Medicaid expansion if you sign off on Right to Work' and they said no." At the prospect of Jackson securing enough votes to overturn the governor's veto, LePage shrugged.
"Paul LePage is a classless bully who is unfit to hold public office of any kind," Maine Democratic Party Chairman Ben Grant said in a statement. "This is the chief executive officer of our State, the highest elected official, the public face of Maine, and he’s making comments that any 14-year-old would know are out of line."
When asked whether he was aware that his sexually vulgar comment would offend people, LePage said, "Good! It ought to because I've been taking it for two years."
When Sen. Jackson heard of the governor's remarks, he said "Stamping his feet and making these type of comments doesn't do anything to help the people of the State of Maine and I'm 44 years old and I understand that that's not the way that you do things if you're going to be an elected official."
LePage's words are the latest in a long line of remarks that have sparked outrage among both constituents and fellow lawmakers, including a time he told the NAACP to "kiss my butt."
