CNN anchor Jake Tapper did something that can be hard for journalists to do.

He completely dismantled a lie told by Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

In a new — or, I should say, very old — attack on likely Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, Trump repeated outlandish and debunked allegations that Clinton and her husband either ordered White House attorney Vince Foster murdered in 1993 or drove him to commit suicide.

Tapper opened his show on Tuesday with a brutally honest takedown of Trump, holding him accountable for his statements to The Washington Post.

“You lent credence to a bizarre and unfounded conspiracy theory … To be clear, the notion that this was a murder is a fiction born of delusion and untethered to reality and contradicted by evidence reviewed in at least six investigations … to say otherwise is ridiculous and, frankly, shameful. Again, this is not a pro-Clinton position or an anti-Trump position. It is a pro-truth position.”

Tapper’s piece has an edge to it that can be uncomfortable for reporters who, despite the criticism they often receive, generally try to be fair and give all sides of a story an opportunity to speak.

Donald Trump and Gov. Paul LePage in Portland in March. Joel Page | Reuters

And it is that drive for fairness that creates problems when high-profile people, such as Trump or Gov. Paul LePage, clearly and unapologetically lie, get their facts wrong or use numbers that don’t add up.

Often, it is left to a politicians’ opponents to call them on their untruths, and the news stories that follow use a familiar pattern, relaying the charges and counter-charges.

Readers are left with the idea that there’s a disagreement on the issue or that the facts are in dispute.

But oftentimes there are simply facts — objective and substantiated.

In the case of Trump’s latest lie, Tapper and CNN showed the courage to tell the truth, not as a favor to Clinton — as I’m sure they’re being accused — but as a service to their viewers.

Journalists in Maine have been struggling with this same circumstance since LePage made his statewide debut in the Republican gubernatorial primary in 2010, with varying degrees of success. They could spend all day trying to track down the crazy things he says.

LePage, time and again, has had only a casual relationship with the truth, and he rarely lets the facts get in the way of a good anecdote or dissuade him from an idea that’s become lodged in his head.

He’s a full-employment program for fact checkers.

Editorial writers, bloggers and opinion columnists — including me — have thrown our share of rocks at the governor, but it’s much more difficult for hard news reporters who are held to a different standard of conduct. They’re earning their paychecks trying to find the right balance.

Earlier this month at a town hall meeting, LePage told a scary story about a student at Deering High School in Portland who had overdosed.

“In one week a junior at Deering High School had three Narcan shots. And the third one, he got up and went to class. He didn’t go to the hospital, he didn’t get checked out. He was so used to it, he just came out of it and went to class.”

It’s a lie. It never happened. And, in fact, it’s medically impossible for someone to be brought back from a near fatal drug overdose with Narcan, also called naloxone, and go about their day uninterrupted.

Numerous outlets, including Maine Public Broadcasting, followed up on the story and quickly determined it was untrue.

But the governor stuck with the story, even after being called upon to get the facts right both privately and publicly. Portland’s delegation to the Legislature asked the governor not to repeat the story. When LePage didn’t respond, the Portland legislators were forced to go public and put out a press release defending Deering High School.

“This didn’t happen, plain and simple. He should check his facts. But more than that, he owes the hardworking students and faculty of Deering an apology,” said Rep. Erik Jorgensen, D-Portland, whose district includes Deering High School.

On Monday, during a call-in program on MPBN, LePage still defended the story, saying, “It was not fabricated. This was an actual conversation I had. The police chief was even in the room.”

The Bangor Daily News, the Press Herald and MPBN again followed up, talking to all the sources that the governor gave. Again, the verdict was the same.

The governor isn’t telling the truth.

This isn’t a pro-Democrat column or an anti-LePage column. It’s a pro-truth column.

Every four years, Maine’s 2nd Congressional District gets some attention from the Republican candidate for president.

Polls will show the race tight in that district, and because Maine is one of only two states that splits its electoral votes by congressional district, the second looks like an opportunity.

The same is true this year.

While presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was suffering through a horrendous news week last month as poll after poll showed him trailing Democrat Hillary Clinton both nationally and in swing states, there was a glimmer of hope for him in the largest congressional district east of the Mississippi.

A poll from the Portland Press Herald came out showing a dead heat in the 2nd District, maybe even a slight Trump lead. According to the poll, Trump was favored by 37 percent of likely voters while Clinton had the support of only 36 percent, with 27 percent supporting someone else or undecided.

Keep in mind, the sample size is a bit small, particularly for breaking down voters by congressional district, and Trump’s lead was well within the margin of error. But Trump seized on the good news.

Donald Trump in Bangor last week. Ashley L. Conti | BDN

He brought his traveling circus to Bangor last week and drew a large crowd of several thousand people to the Cross Insurance Center.

The National Rifle Association bought about $50,000 worth of TV advertising in the Bangor media market, which NBC News reported is part of a $2 million ad buy in seven states. Besides Maine, the other states are Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Trump and his allies want to show that this time, really, Maine’s 2nd District is in play. Even so, there were signs of trouble at Trump’s rally. A number of big name Republicans, including 2nd District Rep. Bruce Poliquin, decided to take a pass on the show.

And the NRA ad buy in Maine is small, it started on the Friday before the 4th of July — not exactly the best time to reach TV viewers in Vacationland — and so far it’s scheduled to run only through July 18, when the Republican National Convention starts in Cleveland.

While Clinton and her supporters have a clear aim at the general election in November, the NRA and Trump are still trying to consolidate Republican support.

The Bangor ad features a former Marine who served as a security contractor in Benghazi, which Republicans in Congress have tried desperately and unsuccessfully to turn into a scandal.

The ad is aimed squarely at Republicans, and the timing makes clear this is about rallying members of the GOP base to Trump prior to the convention.

Instead of swing voters or Maine’s large numbers of unenrolled and undecided voters, the ad really is targeting “Never Trump” Republicans.

“A lot of people say they aren’t going to vote this November because their candidate didn’t win. … Hillary as president? No thanks,” the ad says, in part.

Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz won Maine’s GOP caucus earlier this year, largely on the strength of evangelical voters. His campaign then out-organized Trump during the convention to lock down a commanding delegate lead in the state.

The 2nd Congressional District is changing, especially in relation to Maine’s more southern, more liberal and more prosperous 1st District. It’s older and whiter, and it has been badly hurt by global economics that have contributed to the closure of five paper mills in the last three years.

I can understand why political strategists looking at a map might target Maine, hoping to steal an electoral vote from a blue state. After all, proto-Trump Gov. Paul LePage carried the district with a little help from a third-party candidate.

For the record, Trump’s campaign is a toxic stew of bigotry, racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny and anger. Early on in the campaign, I was certain that he’d never win the Republican nomination. I was wrong.

Perhaps Trump and his hateful campaign will prove me wrong again and pull an upset in the 2nd District. If so, it’ll take more than a couple of rallies and a small TV buy in July to get the job done.

But count me as skeptical. I don’t believe that Trump will win in the 2nd District, though the race may be closer than I would like.

Ultimately, Maine voters — the people who have elected the likes of Ed Muskie, Margaret Chase Smith, Bill Cohen and Olympia Snowe — will not vote for a fear-mongering, race-baiting ego-maniac. At least not again.

Last Thursday, Michael Heath and his band of dour bigots sent out a press release to the Maine media, urging them to attend a twisted news event the next day where they would announce their goal of making it OK to punish people for being gay.

The advisory was delivered 32 years to the day after Charlie Howard was murdered in Bangor for being gay.

Charlie Howard was 23 when he was thrown from a Kenduskeag Stream bridge in downtown Bangor. BDN archives.

In case you don’t remember the story, Howard was leaving a church function when three teenagers called him names, chased him, beat him and threw him off a bridge into the Kenduskeag Stream, where he drowned.

The juxtaposition of Heath and his hatred and the tragedy of a young man’s death so long ago should be jarring enough.

At the press conference, Heath and Paul Madore officially launched an effort to repeal critical elements of Maine’s Human Rights Act, which protects gay and transgender people from discrimination.

In Heath’s twisted world, we would go back to a time when gay and transgender people could be fired, kicked out of their homes or denied basic services based on their sexual orientation.

In his own words, Heath would move “something, a behavior that belongs in the closet back into the closet.”

“There is conduct that ought to be punished,” he said.

Heath’s rhetoric goes far beyond repealing the protections for LGBT Mainers passed by voters in 2005. His real intent, as he made clear, is to make it illegal to be gay.

Standing behind a poster that showed a soldier embracing and kissing his partner on returning from an overseas military deployment, Heath attacked what he called “gay debauchery.”

His partner in hate, Paul Madore, continued: “There’s an open expression of homosexuality and sexual expression that is totally out of line for a country as great as the United States of America.”

The image of two men kissing — a soldier returning from war where he defended his country — apparently is just too much for them to take.

While we may never know for sure what motivated the murder of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, the murderer’s father told NBC News that it was the sight of two men kissing that may have driven his son to commit the largest mass murder in modern U.S. history.

Wrapped in their faith, Heath, Madore and a handful other angry people seek to outlaw love.

They have until January 2017 to collect more than 61,000 signatures to place their initiative on the ballot next year. (They actually have longer to collect signatures, but if they go beyond January, the initiative would be pushed into 2018.)

Heath has a long history of deplorable conduct. He’s suggested that supporters of same-sex marriage should be “cast into the sea with a millstone hung about their neck.”

He’s had electoral success in the past. But a lot has changed since Heath was scaring voters in Lewiston in the 1990s.

In 2012, Maine voters approved a citizens’ initiative allowing loving, same-sex couples to marry. A year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state laws prohibiting same-sex marriage.

“No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority.

“As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage.

“Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.”

As if righting Heath’s karmic slight against Howard, love and equality, on the same day — July 7 — an effort in Washington to gut that state’s non-discrimination ordinance failed to collect enough signatures to make the ballot.

Washington voters, like voters in Maine before, rejected discrimination.

Whether Heath, Madore and the rest of their lot have the ability to collect enough signatures to place their initiative on the ballot is hard to predict. But already they have given voice to prejudice that has no place in Maine or anywhere else.

One of the first rules of politics is to limit the number of days that a bad story gets attention.

Heading into the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump appeared on CBS’s 60 Minutes Sunday night with his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.

The interview was awful, rightfully described as a train wreck.

During a normal news week, the disastrous interview, which showed Trump completely unprepared and at odds with his running mate on major themes of the campaign, would have made news for days as fact checkers and opinion columnists tore through the transcripts with their highlighters set to “wow, that’s crazy.”

Trump stepped on, over and past Pence, embarrassing himself and the governor.

Donald Trump after introducing Indiana Gov. Mike Pence as his running mate. Brendan McDermid | Reuters

It would be easy to feel sorry for Pence, who maintained a look of one both secretly appalled at his own life’s decisions that had led him to this uncomfortable position and completely dumbfounded by what was happening to him.

Except no one should feel sorry for Mike Pence.

He was willing to damage the economy of his entire state, to make Indiana the focus of a national backlash, to alienate thousands of good people all in defense of an indefensible law intended only to allow discrimination against gay and transgender people.

And he’s consistently targeted abortion rights and tried to limit the ability of women to make their own health care decisions.

For that, he has earned the suffering of 100 campaign days in the shadow of Donald Trump and his race-baiting, misogynistic and bigoted campaign. Perhaps it’s Pence’s penitence for his sins against others.

But, lo and behold, the interview, the contradictions and the awkwardness were completely overshadowed.

The first night of the Republican National Convention was a nightmare brought to life — both for the Republican Party and anyone who was unfortunate enough to tune in.

The night, called “Make America Safe Again,” featured speaker after speaker airing their grievances, their fears and their frustrations. The convention appeared to manipulate the survivors of violent crime and war and used them to target groups, mainly immigrants and people of color, as the source of their sorrow.

The underlying message was one of loathing and blame: Whatever your gripe, you can bet it is someone from away, empowered by presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and President Obama, who is to blame.

The convention fits the man: bluster backed by hate and third-rate former stars. (Scott Baio? Really? Would Joanie approve?)

Again, the anger and fact-free free-for-all on display Monday night would have likely dominated news coverage, but…. There’s always a “but” with Trump.

But the candidate’s wife, Melania, took the stage and delivered a well-received and thoughtful speech. Unfortunately it just happened to plagiarize a speech delivered by Michelle Obama at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Hard-core supporters won’t be swayed by something as egg-headed as plagiarism, but any hope at creating a narrative for undecided voters was lost.

Plagiarism in the age of the Internet is certainly more common — and easier to detect than ever before — but it’s still a serious problem and demonstrates the Trump campaign’s disregard for details and for the rules.

Trump officially won the nomination of the Republican Party on Monday night. But instead of marching into Cleveland and through the first nights of the convention as a candidate who has unified his party after a contentious primary, Trump has staggered in like a man in a stupor, clumsily jamming one foot just barely in front of the other.

The normal rules of politics would suggest that Trump is doomed — and eventually, I think his campaign will collapse under the weight of its backwards ideology and ugliness — but the rules of politics don’t seem to apply this campaign.

There is one idea on which most — not all, but most — Democrats and Republicans agree.

There is a real and substantial difference between the policies, personalities and vision of the two candidates for president.

The America of President Hillary Clinton will be drastically different and wholly and unquestionably better than the America of Donald Trump.

The stakes of the election in November are as stark as I can remember, and the choice between the two candidates as clear.

While I didn’t support former Gov. Mitt Romney in his campaign for president, I never doubted that he had a sincere and deep love for our country.

And while I have deep disagreements with my Republican friends about public policy and politics, every argument begins with me knowing that we share many of the same goals: a better world for our children, safe communities, increased opportunities and a system that works for everyone who plays by the rules.

Now, we do certainly disagree on how we make those things happen. But in most instances, folks start from a place of common values and shared experiences.

But for the love of all that is holy, I cannot understand the minority view that there is little difference between electing Clinton and Trump.

If you’ve got a computer, a television or a radio, the differences are as apparent as they are shocking.

Clinton is a dedicated career public servant who has served our country as first lady, a U.S. senator and as secretary of state. Her list of accomplishments is long. And while she doesn’t have a perfect record, she is no conservative.

Consider the full-throated attacks from conservatives and Republicans that have targeted her for decades. They’re not attacking her because she’s their ideological mate.

Clinton is a realist, a pragmatist and someone who is willing to do the hard work necessary for incremental progress. Seldom do big changes come at once. Instead, they come by making improvements piece by piece.

Trump on the other hand is a demagogue, a racist, a misogynist and a bully. He lies as he breathes. And his policy proposals put our country — and the world — at serious risk.

The Washington Post editorial page, after the Republican National Convention, took the unprecedented step of ruling out an endorsement of Trump: “The real estate tycoon is uniquely unqualified to serve as president, in experience and temperament. He is mounting a campaign of snarl and sneer, not substance. To the extent he has views, they are wrong in their diagnosis of America’s problems and dangerous in their proposed solutions. … Mr. Trump is a unique and present danger.”

I’m sure some Republicans might disagree with my assessment, and the Post’s. But I believe that most of them would gladly draw their own distinctions between the two.

The Democratic National Convention got off to a rough start, fed by potential political espionage from a foreign power and the difficulty of uniting a party after a long primary.

The boo birds were there. Tears flowed as the emotion of a long campaign showed on the faces of Sanders supporters. The voice of #BernieorBust was heard.

By the time Hillary Clinton takes the stage at the Democratic National Convention, I hope that the anger and disappointment will have subsided — and that the good men and women who believe that there’s no difference between Clinton and Trump will be convinced otherwise.

First Lady Michelle Obama speaks on the first night of the Democratic National Convention. Olivier Douliery | Abaca Press | TNS

In a speech that will surely be remembered long after this election year, first lady Michelle Obama made one of the most persuasive arguments for Clinton and against Trump.

She rejected Trump’s assertion that somehow our country is no longer great and talked of the progress we’ve made as a people since our founding.

She clearly distinguished Clinton from Trump, without ever mentioning his name.

“I want a president who will teach our children that everyone in this country matters, a president who truly believes in the vision that our Founders put forth all those years ago that we are all created equal, each a beloved part of the great American story,” Obama said. “And when crisis hits, we don’t turn against each other. No, we listen to each other, we lean on each other, because we are always stronger together. And I am here tonight because I know that that is the kind of president that Hillary Clinton will be. And that’s why in this election I’m with her.”

She reminded us of an American ideal that Trump would have us forget: “How we explain that when someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level. No, our motto is, when they go low, we go high.”

If you can’t see the difference between Clinton and Trump, admit that reality, it’s tough to understand how to even begin a political conversation with you.

You can’t sit this one out.

Minnesota Sen. Al Franken and comedian Sarah Silverman at the Democratic National Convention on Monday night. Clem Murray | Philadelphia Inquirer | TNS

It’s time to choose sides. The consequences of a President Trump are too dangerous to pretend they aren’t real. If you think otherwise, to quote Sarah Silverman, “You’re being ridiculous.”

For the third time, Donald Trump drags his bigoted and hateful campaign to Maine.

This time, he comes in the wake of the Republican and Democratic national conventions, which showed him to be outclassed by Democrat Hillary Clinton, even at the thing he pretends to know best — show business.

Trump will appear at an event in Portland, his second trip to the most liberal town in the state. Trump’s campaign thinks that Maine is up for grabs and that their man has a real chance of capturing the state’s four electoral votes.

Early public polling, before the conventions, showed Clinton leading statewide, but a close race in Maine’s more conservative 2nd Congressional District, with a large number of undecided voters.

While Gov. Paul LePage’s two statewide electoral victories suggest that any crazy old thing can happen in election, it’s unlikely that Trump will carry Maine. And as the great sorting of the next three months carries on, I think the 2nd District will ultimately come home to Democrats.

Call me a dreamer, but I do not believe the voters in Maine will accept a misogynist, serial liar and racist — a man who would attack a war hero like U.S. Sen. John McCain and a Gold Star mother — as president.

Clinton comes out of her convention with a solid bump, leading Trump by between seven points and nine points nationally. As with all polling, it’s better to pay attention to poll averages than any single poll, and the averages also show Clinton with a lead nationally.

Presidential elections, however, aren’t decided by the popular vote. The election will be decided by the Electoral College, and there the terrain looks even worse for Trump.

The fact that Trump is paying so much attention to Maine isn’t a sign of strength here. It’s a sign of weakness just about everywhere else.

A protestor unfurls a banner at a Donald Trump campaign rally in Portland in March. Troy R. Bennett | BDN

Trump’s campaign recognizes the bleak Electoral College picture and will be concentrating on just three large states: Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, The New York Times reported earlier this week.

Since the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, Trump has held two rallies in Pennsylvania. But it’s important to note that President Obama carried the state twice and, as the Times noted, no Republican has won there in nearly 30 years.

Florida and Ohio are also problematic for Trump, and it seems that traditional swing states like Virginia — home of Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Tim Kaine — North Carolina and Colorado are moving away from him.

In Maine, Trump finds a welcoming governor, something he lacks in Ohio, and a Portland media market that bleeds into New Hampshire. And you can guarantee that in Portland he will be greeted by protestors, who will generate even more press.

And if you’re wondering why Portland vs. a location further north or west, Portland’s media market covers about 40 percent of the voters in Maine’s 2nd District. That’s why candidates for Congress from the 2nd District have to buy ad time in the more expensive Portland market to reach their voters.

And if Trump is to have any chance in the state, he must cut into Clinton’s lead in the 1st District, where the Portland Press Herald had him trailing badly in June.

Trump loves being the center of attention, and all eyes in Maine will be on him when his circus comes to down. But he’s limping to town, embroiled in a new controversy because he continues to attack the parents of a Muslim-American war hero. In Maine, regardless of political party, we hold veterans in the highest regard.

His attacks are shameless and disgusting. And they’re going to be on full display.

Now for a P.S. Democrats, you need to knock it off with the shaming of Melania Trump, the nominee’s wife. It’s perfectly legitimate to criticize her for delivering a speech that was partially plagiarized and to question her resume.

But attacking her for photos from her career as a model, like the New York Post and other publications have done, doesn’t belong in the presidential race. It appeals only to the most prurient interests.

It is wrong when conservatives attack first lady Michelle Obama for her attire, for showing her arms and for her appearance. Are some Republicans being hypocritical? Yes.

But as the first lady said during her amazing convention speech, “When they go low, we go high.”

Please stop.

Running for office, U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin has made it clear he doesn’t like taxes.

But it was never so clear just how much he hates them. He hates them so much that he didn’t pay his fair share or pay them on time.

Last week, the Associated Press broke the story that over the last decade Poliquin has paid his property taxes late 31 times.

He’s been late four times since being elected to Congress in 2014.

It’s not the first time Poliquin has come under scrutiny for his sketchy tax practices. He has also been caught taking advantage of the state’s Tree Growth Tax Law, which gives property tax breaks for managing timber harvest in a sustainable way.

In that case, he paid just $21 on 10 acres of his multi-million dollar oceanfront estate in 2010.

Apparently, Poliquin believes — or at least acts like — the tax laws don’t apply to him.

In statements to the AP and to other news outlets, Poliquin tries to dismiss his late tax payments with an explanation that’s borderline insulting to all the rest of us who pay our taxes on time.

He told the Morning Sentinel that for most Mainers “property taxes are paid without a check even being cut or even a thought about the bill.”

I can’t speak for everyone, but every six months when my property tax bill comes, I think about it. And having spent a lot of time talking with voters, I know that they are concerned about their property taxes, pay attention to how they are spent and are sensitive when they go up.

Poliquin may justify his actions by saying he’s just doing due diligence, but in fact, he’s cheating his neighbors and the communities where he owns property when he pays his bills late — or abuses programs to which he’s not entitled.

Rep. Bruce Poliquin at the University of Maine on July 29. Ashley L. Conti | BDN

He’s not sticking it to “big government.” He’s hurting all the people who pay their taxes on time and in full. (Disclosure: I am a Democrat, Poliquin is a Republican; Emily Cain, his opponent in the 2nd Congressional District, is a friend and I’ve donated to her campaign.)

Portland, where I live, started sending property tax bills out last week. It comes at a tough time in my household. The 93-year-old boiler (it was converted from coal to oil in 1932) that’s gotten my family through 13 winters needs to be replaced. No small investment.

Add in the cost of asbestos abatement, and it’s a serious crunch.

In this regard, my family isn’t any different than most others. The property tax bill comes when it comes — not when it’s convenient or when they might have a few extra dollars stashed away. And when the tax bill comes, most people pay it because it’s their obligation for being a good citizen.

Maine’s tax system is surely skewed. We rely too much on property taxes to fund essential services. But instead of being an excuse not to pay them, it actually makes paying them on time even more important.

Portland breaks down how property taxes are distributed on its semi-annual bills (with rounding, numbers don’t add up to 100 percent):

• 49 percent for education;
• 18 percent for public safety;
• 13 percent for debt service;
• 6 percent for public works;
• 3 percent for county taxes;
• 3 percent for parks, recreation and facilities;
• 2 percent for health and human services;
• 2 percent for the libraries;
• 2 percent for metro; and
• 1 percent for general government.

Of course, I’d like to pay less. But when I look at that list, I feel like I’m getting my money’s worth. Frankly, it’s a bargain. Property taxes fund about 71 percent of the cost of local government.

Property taxes — in Portland and around the state — overwhelmingly go to fund K-12 education. That’s an investment in our children and in our state’s future that I wholeheartedly support.

The police and fire departments in my community are top notch. They keep my family safe, and I believe that they’ll be there if we need them.

In fact, in every category, there are investments in things that make our communities stronger, whether it’s road repair or parks or spaces for public events.

Poliquin is a big-time businessman and a member of Congress. He didn’t make a mistake when he was late with his taxes or when he inappropriately enrolled in the Tree Growth program.

He made a decision. And that decision hurt everyone else.

Maine is facing a “brand crisis.”

But we’re also facing a crisis that is much deeper and more profound than the damage that’s being done to our state’s image.

Gov. Paul LePage, with his racist, bigoted and uncontrolled behavior, has brought shame upon the state.

So much so that it could impact Maine as a vacation destination.

A classic Maine lobster roll from Red’s Eats in Wiscasset. Roadfood.com

Or push businesses — and new jobs and new investment — away.

But beyond the dollars signs, the boycotts and the national headlines featuring LePage and his foul language and made-up “facts,” Maine is at a point of reckoning.

Are we going to allow politicians to feed on the worst impulses of us all for political gain? Are we going to stand by while a governor attacks black people and Hispanic people and puts a target on their backs?

Will we tolerate racism and homophobia?

And will we reward politicians who seek power at the expense of progress and tolerance?

For as sure as Paul LePage has crossed the line and shown himself to be unfit to govern our state, there are other Republicans who see opportunity. They believe — or at least are acting as if they believe — a political strategy of racial division and hatred will pay dividends in November.

LePage has made it clear where he stands: People of color are the enemy and should be shot; the worst insult you can call someone is a homophobic slur; and it’s OK to threaten violence against others and urge Mainers to take the law into their own hands.

In the wake of his outrageous behavior, Republicans — not all, but too many to discount — are coming to his defense, blaming the media, blaming Rep. Drew Gattine, who was the target of a vile verbal attack by the governor, and blaming immigrants.

You name it. The blame is tossed about everywhere but where it belongs — squarely on the shoulders of the governor.

They talk about the governor’s straight talk. It’s no such thing.

When the governor says that 90 percent of the people arrested for dealing drugs in the state are black and Hispanic, he’s lying.

As multiple sources have demonstrated, it’s just not true.

It’s a made-up number that he uses to justify his own prejudice and to fit the narrative he’s constructed in his own mind.

But apologist Republicans are banking on the fact that a lot of their supporters don’t know or care what the facts are. They believe — and God help us if they’re right — that the key to their electoral success is to defend the governor or, even worse, adopt his race-tinged worldview.

It’s vile. And in some districts, it might just work.

That’s the crisis we face. As Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has shown on the national level, there is a constituency that responds to racial animosity, bigotry and hatred.

It breaks my heart to think such a tactic might work in Maine, where my experience in every part of Maine tells me our state and its people are better than that.

The Associated Press, the largest news-gathering organization in the world, reported on the potential problems that LePage and his obscene antics could cause for a state that’s growing more dependent on tourism and visitors for jobs and economic opportunities.

The story, which traveled on the wires around the world, quotes a marketing expert from Portland talking about the situation.

“People are paying attention now, directly or in their minds, about what’s going on up there in Maine,” said David Goldberg, an advertising and public relations executive in Portland who identified Maine’s brand crisis.

And they’re paying attention for the wrong reasons.

When businesses look to grow and expand, they look for communities where their workers will be welcomed. They look for diverse, educated communities where the best and the brightest — regardless of skin color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or religion — feel at home.

Ask North Carolina and Indiana what happens when major employers and job creators think a state is run by bigots. Short answer: Bad things. The jobs go elsewhere.

The battle Maine faces right now isn’t for tourist dollars or direct investment — though those things might get the attention of some political leaders. The fight now is for the soul of our state, the kind of people we want to be, the kind of communities we want to live in.

For Republicans who are trying to find their way, you know how history will judge these events and LePage.

After the short-term political give-and-take is lost to memory and the procedural questions are forgotten, all that will remain are the big, undeniable facts. How will your actions be judged?

Here we are.

A week removed from possible impeachment, calls for the Secretary of State to remove the governor and a burgeoning constitutional crisis that divided Republicans and shone an ugly, hateful spotlight on Maine and … nothing.

The conversation has shifted away from Paul LePage and the ample evidence that he’s unfit to serve in the high office of governor.

State Republicans, particularly in the House, believed that if they hid for a few days and held out, the conversation would shift away from LePage’s deplorable behavior.

LePage, for his part, has recommitted to not talking to the media with the exception of a handful of very friendly talk radio shows where he goes largely unchallenged and unchecked.

He tosses bombs, threatens lawsuits, and we all chase the newest shiny object. And, somehow, he escapes without being held accountable for his actions, which include lying about the nature of crime in Maine, inciting violence and using bigoted, racist, homophobic and hateful language to try to divide Mainers.

He’s threatened a member of the Legislature, and he’s called people of color the enemy. He’s said, wrongly, that immigrants carry disease and black drug dealers come to Maine to impregnate white girls.

The State House in Augusta. Troy R. Bennett | BDN

It’s shocking — it’s Trumpian — that he can make up such harmful stories, which aren’t based in fact, and yet slip away from accountability.

In a new poll released this week by The Boston Globe and Colby College, LePage remains deeply unpopular as much of the state agrees that his act is wearing very thin.

Sixty-four percent of respondents to the poll say that the level of civility in politics has gotten worse or much worse during LePage’s term.

Fifty-four percent — more voters than he’s ever earned at the ballot box — of respondents say they have no confidence in LePage’s ability to govern.

Similarly, 55 percent of respondents say they prefer a candidate who will compromise, and a plurality of 46 percent say the state is on the wrong track, compared with just 38 percent who say the state is headed in the right direction.

And finally, in a hypothetical head-to-head match up against U.S. Sen. Angus King in 2018, LePage trails by 22 points, with only 4 percent undecided.

While a gridlocked Legislature is unable — or unwilling — to hold the governor accountable, the public is clear.

Voters want something different.

And while the poll seems to indicate a close race between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, the underlying attitudes, to me, suggest that voters are looking for something neither Trump nor LePage can offer: Civility, decency and the ability to build consensus to move our country and our state forward.

It’s always dangerous to take one poll and treat it as gospel. Smart policy is to look at polls over time and consider the trend lines as opposed to single data points.

But the evidence is that Maine voters have tired of LePage’s hateful act.

A handful of LePage critics are just as fed up, and they petitioned Secretary of State Matt Dunlap to invoke a provision in the Maine Constitution to remove LePage.

The provision allows the secretary of state to make the case to the state’s Supreme Judicial Court that he has reason to believe the governor is unable to discharge the duties of his office. The court would then vote on removal.

The move would have been unprecedented. The provision was intended as a safeguard against a chief executive who becomes incapacitated and unable to perform the duties of the job.

The governor may be unfit; and he has shown no real desire to actually run the government in an effective way, but I think Dunlap made the right call as hard as it is to say out loud.

“It is my belief that the actions of the governor, while reprehensible, do not indicate that he is unable to perform the duties of the office,” Dunlap wrote to Rep. Jeff Evangelos, who sought LePage’s removal.

The standard to overturn the will of voters through action of the secretary of state can only be undertaken under the most severe of circumstances. To remove, it must be Republicans, Democrats and independents coming together — putting politics aside for the good of the state. It can’t be the unitary action of an individual combined with the decision of an appointed court.

With a gridlocked Legislature and Republicans in the House and some in the Senate unwilling to act, Maine voters have only one reasonable recourse.

On Election Day, hold the governor accountable and elect legislators who will reject his politics of division and act as a check on the power of a governor unhinged.

Maine voters will be asked to decide five ballot questions this Election Day.

And while the issues range from social and economic reform to election reform, all five are on the ballot for a simple reason.

Voters are frustrated with a state government that is fractured and dysfunctional — with the dysfunction starting at the top with Gov. Paul LePage.

In a new poll from Morning Consult asking voters about their governors, LePage comes in as the fifth least popular governor in the country with 58 percent disapproving of him and only 39 approving.

LePage rounds out a bottom five that includes Republican Sam Brownback of Kansas, whose policies have been a disaster for his state’s economy; Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy; LePage’s pal, Chris Christie in New Jersey; and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder.

It’s a murderer’s row of ineptitude and vice.

And it speaks to the backlash, at least in the case of Snyder, Brownback, LePage and Christie, to right-wing, ideologically driven governance and the havoc it can cause.

Brownback has broken the back of his state’s economy and education system, Christie’s vindictiveness is on trial right now, and LePage rivals GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump on racist and bigoted statements, half-truths and outright lies.

LePage has become such a divisive figure that he’s campaigned against members of his own party in the state Senate, putting the Republican majority at risk, and has vetoed more legislation than any governor in the history of the state.

But that description really doesn’t do justice to the disservice the man has brought. While his supporters love him with zeal, he’s left some Republicans wondering if their party can survive his and Trump’s penchant for hatred.

It’s no wonder voters have decided to take matters into their own hands.

Nick Sambides Jr. | BDN

Though it was difficult at times for all concerned, the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and Republican majority in the state Senate did find ways to work together — and, when necessary, overcome the roadblock to compromise that is Paul LePage.

But the partisan divide left a lot of issues unresolved, despite popular support for the policies.

Voters, ready for progress, decided that it was time to push forward.

Five initiative campaigns collected enough signatures to be on the ballot in November. The legalization and taxation of marijuana, increased funding for K-12 education, requiring background checks for all gun sales, an increase in the minimum wage and ranked choice voting.

(Disclosure: I’m working on Question 3, which would require background checks on all gun sales.)

The questions themselves don’t have a lot in common when it comes to subject, but they are all a reaction to frustrations that voters feel and want to resolve. They represent a desire for real action, efforts for meaningful change, at least from the perspective of the proponents.

It’s fair to disagree on the merits of any of the proposals; but it’s clear how we got such a crowded ballot. The breakdown of the normal order in Augusta has left voters hungry for another way to enact change.

And while the ballot is crowded, it’s also informative to remember that LePage also backed two divisive initiatives that failed to collect enough signatures to make it on the ballot. He couldn’t muster the support to get the job done.

LePage intuitively seems to understand the power of his bully pulpit and he wields it as a hammer against minorities, people of color and anyone he considers an enemy (which, at one point or another includes just about everyone except his loyalists in the House Republican caucus).

But while he stokes up the anger of his base supporters, he’s never found the magic necessary to grow his support beyond a plurality, which incidentally helped drive support for Question 5, ranked choice voting.

Maine has a long tradition of direct democracy, both for ballot initiatives and in the still common town meeting style of government.

We also take our democracy seriously. Maine is consistently in the top ranks in the country for voter participation, something that we should all be proud of.

Come Election Day, the decision on the five ballot questions, plus the transportation bond, will be made by Maine voters, who will carry the energy of the presidential campaign and their frustration with LePage and the gridlock he has birthed into the voting booth.

There, they will have the opportunity to show their frustration with gridlock and hateful and divisive rhetoric, and they’ll be shielded — if only for a few moments — from LePage’s misinformed and misdirected screeds, which today are delivered uncritical through too many mass media channels.

In a hard-hitting, blunt editorial published online tonight, The Washington Post, one of the most prestigious newspapers in the world, called upon Maine Gov. Paul LePage to resign.

The paper cited the governor’s “unhinged racism and unhinged ravings” in a blistering editorial.

The Post goes on to chronicle the governor’s damaging behavior, threats and lies, including his three-ring binder of drug trafficking suspects, only a third of which are black or Hispanic.

At one point the paper says the governor really should move on “by resigning and seeking help, in order to spare the people of Maine more of his wild-eyed ramblings.”

Drawing the attention of the editorial board of the Washington Post speaks to the level of indignity and outrageousness LePage has brought to the office of governor.

The Post warns: “Mr. LePage threatens to remake his state’s image from a vacation paradise of surreal natural beauty to a hotbed of hatred.”

As his tall tales, lies, blunders and dangerous rhetoric build one upon another, he has become a national disgrace.

No doubt the hardest core of his supporters will remain loyal, attack the media once again and dismiss it all as just the governor fighting against “political correctness.”

But for anyone interested in the facts, the indictment against the governor is overwhelming. The Post now joins a growing chorus that agrees that the he is unfit to serve.

While the governor would like to change the subject from his racist behavior and words, it’s clear that his misdeeds will follow him for the remainder of his time in office — however long that might be.

Hatred, whether it’s targeting someone’s race, religion or sexual orientation, doesn’t grow in a vacuum.

It needs air and nourishment. It needs encouragement. Hatred thrives on anecdotes and stereotypes. And it gains ground where people remain silent.

This week, The Washington Post joined a growing chorus calling on Gov. Paul LePage to resign, citing the governor’s “unhinged racism and unhinged ravings.”

The Post goes on to chronicle the governor’s damaging behavior, threats and lies, including his claims of a three-ring binder that proves most of the drug dealers in Maine are people of color or Hispanic.

Turns out his binder — a collage of unrelated crime reports, mug shots and scribblings — only shows that he is wearing racially tinted glasses.

An August rally urging Gov. Paul LePage to resign. Ashley L. Conti | BDN

LePage has constructed a world that fits his point of view, a world in which black people or people of other religions or national origins are the enemy and that white Maine must be protected. Truth be damned.

The binder was the last straw for The Post. The paper says the governor really should move on “by resigning and seeking help, in order to spare the people of Maine more of his wild-eyed ramblings.”

To draw the attention of the editorial board of The Washington Post speaks to the level of indignity and outrageousness LePage has brought to the office of governor.

The Post warns: “Mr. LePage threatens to remake his state’s image from a vacation paradise of surreal natural beauty to a hotbed of hatred.”

As his tall tale, lies, blunders and dangerous rhetoric build one upon another, he has become a national disgrace.

No doubt the hardest core of his supporters will remain loyal, attack the media once again and dismiss it all as just the governor fighting against “political correctness.”

But for anyone interested in the facts, the indictment against the governor is overwhelming.

While the governor would like to change the subject from his racist behavior and words, it’s clear that his misdeeds will follow him for the remainder of his time in office — however long that might be.

But there’s a larger worry than the ravings of one “unhinged” governor. We see similar ravings from Donald Trump, who’s just one step away from being president.

Trump, who echoes the worst of LePage with a bigger megaphone, continues to draw support from the extreme right wing and white supremacists. Just last week, his son, Donald Jr., used social media to compare Syrian refugees to a bowl of Skittles.

He posted an image that read, with a picture of the colorful candy, “If I had a bowl of skittles [sic] and I told you just three would kill you. Would [sic] you take a handful? That’s our Syrian refugee problem.”

He followed the image with this wisdom, “This image says it all. Let’s end the politically correct agenda that doesn’t put America first.”

There’s so much wrong with this, it’s hard to know where to start.

The analogy, however, isn’t new, and it comes from a much darker time in world history. Naomi LaChance at The Intercept uncovered the origins of this libel.

In 1938, LaChance wrote, a children’s book called “Der Giftpilz,” or “The Toadstool” was published by Julius Streicher.

In the story, the mother compares Jews in the community to a toadstool among edible mushrooms, saying just one can destroy the country.

Streicher also ran a newspaper that ran anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-communist and anti-capitalist propaganda, LaChance found. The paper called for Jews’ extermination.

After the war, Streicher was hanged for crimes against humanity.

To be absolutely clear — so there’s no chance for confusion — I’m not comparing the governor, Donald Trump or Donald Trump Jr. to the Nazis, nor are their sins anywhere in line with the Holocaust.

But violent, hateful rhetoric from political leaders is dangerous. It gives air to some of the ugliest impulses in society.

Comparing refugees to poison, blaming black people and Hispanics for a drug crisis that knows no color or community, and excusing violence against people you disagree with have the potential to put us on a dangerous course.

On NPR before this week’s presidential debate, Steve Inskeep interviewed a voter from Georgia. A Trump supporter, the man predicted a civil war if Democrat Hillary Clinton is elected.

As unsettling as it was to hear, this guy is just following the lead of people like LePage and Trump, who have done all they can to divide us against one another, to turn neighbors into enemies and to ride a tide of animus into political power.

If we don’t continue to speak out and to hold them accountable for both words and deeds, someone is going to put their dangerous ideas into action. And when they do, we’re all to blame.

Maine should give working families a raise and support a minimum wage increase on Election Day.

And between now and then, Mainers deserve a serious policy debate that doesn’t resort to outlandish claims and insults.

Question 4 on the ballot would increase the state’s minimum wage from $7.50 an hour, the current rate, to $9 an hour in 2017 and then by a dollar a year until 2020 when the minimum wage would adjust based on the Consumer Price Index.

It’s good policy that will help an estimated 181,000 workers and their families, including 63,000 children in the state whose parents would see their income gradually rise.

According to Question 4 supporters, about a third of working parents in the state will see a wage increase along with about 25 percent of workers older than 55. We’re not talking about teenagers here. Ninety percent of the people who will benefit from an increased minimum wage are 20 or older.

Micky Bedell | BDN

The evidence supports the increase, and there’s good information from around the country on the impact of raising the minimum wage on small businesses, job creation and the economy.

As the Maine Center for Economic Policy explains, a person working full-time at the current $7.50 an hour earns just $15,600 a year. That’s less than the federal poverty level for a family of two. And Maine’s minimum wage today has less purchasing power than the minimum wage did in 1968.

It’s time to raise the wage and make sure that hardworking people can earn enough to support themselves and their families.

It’s not unusual during referendum campaigns for the competing sides to offer countervailing points of view and different interpretations of the evidence.

But a claim made last week by an opponent of increasing the minimum wage goes way too far.

“Where would that money be spent?” asked Rick Snow, a Yarmouth business owner and Republican House candidate, during a during a Maine Heritage Policy Center press conference. “We’ve heard about the opiate issues in the state of Maine. Are we going to add more income to individuals so they can spend it on illegal activities?”

How can three sentences be so wrong on so many fronts?

Poor, working families aren’t criminals. They aren’t the enemy. And giving them access to a living wage will only increase the stability in their lives and improve outcomes in areas such as education for their children, health and well-being.

Opiate addiction and drug abuse stretch across socioeconomics, class and geography. It’s a problem that has struck Maine’s rural communities, cities and suburbs. It affects white people, mostly, but also people of color. And it is an indiscriminate killer, unconcerned about the size of the bank account.

Equating poverty or working at a low-wage job with drug abuse or other illegal activities is a slander. It has no place in a debate about the minimum wage.

According to the CDC, the people most at-risk of abusing heroin were traditionally white men between 18 and 25, people with income less than $20,000 and those without insurance. But goodness have times changed.

“Significant increases in heroin use were found in groups with historically low rates of heroin use, including women and people with private insurance and higher incomes,” the CDC wrote.

The New York Times just this week told the tragic story of a 27-year-old, middle-class, suburban, college graduate who died from a heroin overdose in a Staten Island mall bathroom.

The Times wrote, “‘What does that tell you, the death in the mall?’ said Luke Nasta, the director of an addiction treatment center. ‘It’s part of mainstream society. Bright, shiny glass and nice stuff. The abundance of America, and using heroin and succumbing to an overdose. It’s a crosscut of society. It’s here. There’s no denying it.’”

Heroin is here — in Maine — and it’s taking a terrible toll on families.

The best way to fight back is with facts and science, not half-baked anecdotes and crazy economic theories.

We need to fight addiction — and, frankly, we know what needs to be done.

Keeping the minimum wage at a substandard level doesn’t fight back against addiction. If anything, keeping people locked in low-wage jobs only makes it worse.

If you’re going to attack a woman political candidate over a women’s health issue, you’d better get the facts right.

Otherwise, you can expect a powerful backlash.

That’s happening now in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District.

The race, a rematch between freshman U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin and former state Sen. Emily Cain, is one of the tightest contests in the entire country.

One of Poliquin’s allied groups, the National Republican Congressional Committee, has launched an ad attacking Cain for a bipartisan public health bill from several years ago. Trying to latch onto the furor over Republican Donald Trump’s repeated attempts to body-shame a former Miss Universe, the NRCC tried to turn the issue against Cain.

The group was hoping foggy memories of a non-controversial bill from 2007 would allow it to turn women’s and girls’ weight into a campaign issue.

I was working in Gov. John Baldacci’s administration when the bill was debated and a similar bill later passed. The way it’s described in the ad is not accurate. The bill was the response to a nonpartisan commission working to fight childhood obesity. It included strong opt-out provisions and complete anonymity for participants.

But don’t take my word for it.

The Maine Medical Association calls the ad an “irresponsible distortion of the facts” and “offensive.” The Maine State Nurses Association called it “outrageous” and “false.”

But the ad, an ugly example of the double standard women face when they run for office, gave Cain the opening for one of the most personal and powerful ads of the campaign season.

A screenshot of Emily Cain’s ad “Better.”

“Like a lot of women, I’ve struggled with my weight,” says Cain, sitting on a couch, looking straight into the camera. “It’s hard. It’s very personal. So for the special interests backing Bruce Poliquin to exploit the insecurities of teenage girls, it’s a new low.”

She’s honest and connects with the viewer in a way that’s hard to accomplish in political ads. She creates a real moment.

I count Cain as a friend; I have contributed to her campaign; and I was proud of the way she reacted to this attack.

The Cain ad and the back-and-forth have drawn local, national and international attention. Allure, New York Magazine, The Guardian, Press Herald, Maine Public Broadcasting, WCSH and WLBZ and the Bangor Daily News have all covered the ads, plus a whole lot more.

Poliquin has gone to great pains this year to try to avoid connecting himself to Trump while at the same time refusing to disavow him. Cain’s ad, and all the attention it’s received, has now thrown him right in the middle of Trump’s misogynistic meltdown with women voters. The congressman still painfully refuses to take a stand either for or against Trump.

While one public poll in the race has shown Poliquin with a lead, both the spending in the race by the campaigns and outside groups who support them — as well as legitimate private polling — tell me the race is close. (While the public poll was conducted by a reputable organization, the small sample size in the 2nd Congressional District creates a lot of doubt about the numbers in my mind).

Poliquin won his seat during a Republican, off-year wave election two years ago. This year, with Trump and Hillary Clinton atop the ticket, the electorate will be different, with more voters guaranteed to show up at the polls. The difference between 2014 and 2016 is akin to running in a different place altogether.

While Americans may hold Congress in disdain, they tend to re-elect their congresspeople with alarming frequency. In 2014, amid strong “throw the bums out” electoral rage, voters still re-elected 95 percent of congressional incumbents.

Incumbents have built-in advantages. They can usually raise money more easily than challengers, and they have the infrastructure of their offices to offer support, particularly when the lines between political events and congressional events blur. They have two years to communicate with their constituents, including through direct mail. It’s tough to overcome.

But the toughest test for incumbents is the first re-election campaign. Every cycle there are so-called “Fragile Freshmen,” a group that surely includes Poliquin. He’s vulnerable and remains under 50 percent in most polling, a dangerous place for any incumbent in a two-way race.

If Cain pulls off the upset, we may look back to the last couple of weeks and see that an attack ad that went too far and the strong response reset the race.

And hopefully this fall, once and for all, voters will reject this type of ugliness so we can stop talking about a woman’s appearance or weight as part of a political campaign.

Gov. Paul LePage this week did not call attention to a publicly available report from the state auditor that uncovered that his administration had knowingly misspent $13.4 million intended to help poor families.

The report describes a massive transfer of millions of dollars from one program within the Department of Health and Human Services to another, in violation of federal law, revealed by an auditor’s investigation. The report included scathing and direct indications of wrongdoing and described the department’s approach as “troublesome.”

The auditor’s report followed extensive reporting by the Bangor Daily News, which first reported the wrongful spending in June.

While the governor’s office ignored the easily attainable auditor’s report (it was sent directly to his office), news broke on the BDN’s website.

“By purposefully choosing not to discuss this story, the governor’s office is complicit in hiding welfare fraud,” said I, just now, in this column.

The form and prose of the five paragraphs above match a hyperbolic and accusatory press release sent out by the governor just a day before the state auditor dropped a truth bomb on his actions and the actions of his subordinates. Some of the details were changed to highlight the guilty, while also poking fun at the absurdity of the governor’s press release.

Instead of talking about $13.4 million of misspent money under his control, the governor used his massive bully — and I do mean bully — pulpit to draw attention to a federal affidavit concerning an investigation of a minority-owned grocery store in Portland that has been accused — not charged or convicted — of fraud regarding SNAP benefits.

Donald Trump and Gov. Paul LePage in Portland in March. Joel Page | Reuters

Attacking the media, like his spirit animal Donald Trump, LePage said: “The Maine people have been demanding welfare reform for many years … But the liberal, out-of-touch Maine media still vehemently opposes common-sense welfare reforms. It took an out-of-state news outlet to finally report this major story.”

To answer the people’s demands on welfare reform, perhaps the governor should have looked a little closer at his own glass house and what was happening under the watchful eye of his cabinet.

Instead he prefers to use a federal investigation that has yet to produce criminal charges — though it could — to attack the media and to paint Maine’s immigrant community with his well-used, broad and disgusting brush of xenophobia.

I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering the governor believes people of color to be the enemy and no one turns Mainers against each other better than he does.

Nobody supports fraud — whether it’s at a grocery store or within state government — not even “liberals.” LePage should spend a little more time managing his own administration and a little less time with his binder of drug dealers. Maybe then, he would really uncover some fraud.

LePage seems bizarrely determined to take anything his friend, Trump, says and make it worse.

It’s almost as if LePage got a phone call from his party’s standard bearer, asking for cover to help knock repeated and credible allegations of sexual assault off the front pages.

“Look, I did some bad things. I’m going to say some really crazy, dangerous stuff. I need you to get out there and say some crazier, more dangerous stuff. That way I’ll look less crazy! Can you take my place on the front page?”

Order received, it sure seems.

The governor has managed to join Trump in claiming that the election on Nov. 8 will be rigged, despite his own success in two elections here. And he’s accused political opponents who support raising the minimum wage of “attempted murder” and said they should be imprisoned just because they think people should earn a living wage. Sad.

There is little to no voter fraud in the United States, certainly not on the level LePage and Trump suggest. They are fanning the flame of a radical and out-of-touch base, and they’re making excuses for what’s looking like an electoral defeat.

In this country, we don’t jail political opponents just because they disagree about public policy. That would be downright un-American.

And, with his attack against the Maine media, LePage guaranteed that his preferred investigation would get attention — regardless of due process or criminal charges. Reporters had tough choices: Defend themselves, which some did, cover the affidavit, or both. Third option: Ignore the circus.

The governor is unhinged, and he’s a crackpot. He lumbers and stumbles from one controversy to the next without regard to the damage he’s doing to our state or the people who live here.

But he’s very good at one thing: Making sure that we all look where he’s pointing.

Luckily the press — and the state auditor — can look in more than one direction at a time. The governor might not have called attention to the big story of the day, but other people sure did.

It’s been another bad week for U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin as he tries to win re-election.

A new ad and a press conference pummeling the congressman for breaking his promise to firefighters hit the airwaves as Donald Trump Jr., son of the Donald Trump who also happens to be the GOP presidential nominee, campaigned in Maine.

Poliquin has been on the run from Trump since the beginning of the controversial nominee’s rise. He’s refused to answer questions about whether he supports his party’s nominee, going so far as to look absolutely ridiculous when asked about it by reporters.

If Marco Rubio’s brain reboot during the New Hampshire primary cost him a shot at winning the Republican nomination, Poliquin’s antics go even further.

Democratic challenger Emily Cain has doggedly pursued the congressman, urging him to tell voters once and for all where he stands on Trump.

Joined by the Maine Democratic Party, they haven’t let up. And Poliquin has been just as dogged in his avoidance.

He’s really in a bind.

After the release of a lewd tape in which Trump describes sexually assaulting women, there was a new round of Republican defections from the nominee. But national Democratic polling found no easy answer for down-ballot GOP candidates.

If they denounced Trump after his latest scandal, they lost support from the base. If they didn’t, they lost support from swing voters. “The polling also suggests cutting Trump loose, in addition to angering the base, may not earn a GOP lawmaker much credit from swing voters,” wrote Greg Sargent of the Washington Post.

Bruce Poliquin during a debate in Presque Isle with Democratic challenger Emily Cain. Dave Allen | BDN

By trying to avoid Trump, Poliquin is stuck in the middle of no man’s land, and this week he started taking fire not just from Democrats but from the Trump campaign as well.

During his Tuesday visit to the hotly contested 2nd Congressional District, Trump Jr. showed he hasn’t fallen far from the rhetorical tree, blasting Poliquin for his lack of conviction.

According to Sun Journal reporter Steve Collins, Trump Jr. said Poliquin and other Republicans who won’t support his father are “just protecting themselves and the little environment that they’ve created” so they can stay on the gravy train.

Trump Jr.’s remarks highlighted Poliquin’s slippery approach to his party’s standard bearer, and put him back in the news for something he’s desperately trying to avoid.

If the polling is correct, Poliquin may be stuck: Unable to break with Trump and unable to please Trump’s hardcore supporters who dislike his ambiguity.

The Trumpian takedown came at the same time as a brutally effective attack from Cain. In the ad and during a press conference in Bangor, Cain appeared with professional firefighters who accuse Poliquin of turning his back on them when they needed him.

“Bruce Poliquin said he’d always have our backs. He broke that promise,” says a firefighter from the ad, which describes Poliquin’s unwillingness to sponsor a bill that would provide firefighters who responded to the 9/11 attacks with health care for illness resulting from the work they did on the scene.

“I couldn’t believe our congressman wouldn’t take the lead then and help 9/11 firefighters,” another firefighter says in the ad. (Disclosure: Cain is a friend, I’ve contributed to her campaign, and I like firefighters.)

The race for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District is one of the most hotly contested in the country, and it’s breaking all kinds of records for spending, particularly by outside groups who are pulling out all the stops.

Polling has the race tied, a bad position for an incumbent less than two weeks from the election.

And while Trump maintained a lead in the district for much of the summer, the most recent public poll now shows a tight race with Hillary Clinton, who is up by 1.5 points, with 10.5 percent undecided.

That trend also works against Poliquin, even as he takes body blows from foes and foes alike (see what I did there?).

I can’t predict whether Trump’s strongest supporters will be satisfied with Poliquin’s wink, nod and dodge about their guy. But they don’t seem to be a tolerant bunch.

The right thing for Poliquin to have done was to disavow Trump early on and take a principled stand against a man who has shown himself to be a racist, misogynist and serial abuser, according to a growing list of accusers.

It’s probably too late for that now, leaving Poliquin to spend two more weeks stuck between his opponent and a sinking Trump as undecided voters make up their minds.

My kids have never really known a time that didn’t involve politics.

Since they’ve been old enough to stuff an envelope, stick a yard sign into the ground or knock on a door, they’ve been part of every campaign I’ve worked on.

They’ve had some amazing opportunities. They’ve met presidents, first ladies and governors. They even got to meet Stephen King, who posed for a great picture with them.

For my daughter, Addie, though, elections can be bittersweet. Her birthday is in early November and most years, she shares attention with an election and with Halloween.

She turned 13 this week, and it’s not really accurate to call her my little girl anymore. She’s smart, compassionate and strong. She doesn’t take any crap and she doesn’t give any quarter when it comes to being engaged, learning about an issue and taking a side.

As we move into the final days of the most bitter, divisive and ugly campaign in my lifetime — and certainly in my daughter’s — I would like to share an essay she wrote for school earlier this year.

The assignment was called “This I Believe,” and Addie wrote about her memories of Election Night 2014.

Addie spent Election Night at the Michaud for Maine headquarters. Both she and my son, Elias, can be counted among Mike Michaud’s biggest fans. Addie was with us for the live television interviews and as we watched the results come in. She was there when Mike had to make the difficult decision to concede to Gov. Paul LePage.

Workers remove the giant “I Like Mike” sign from the stage in Portland after Democrat Mike Michaud’s 2014 defeat to Gov. Paul LePage. Troy R. Bennett | BDN

As we head toward Election Day, I’d like to share Addie’s memories from that night and the lesson she remembers. And to all my campaign colleagues (regardless of which side you’re on), I hope during this crazy last week that this helps you remember why you got involved in the first place.

Here’s how she remembered the night and what she wrote:

We hopped into the car, desperately trying to dodge the rain. We were on our way to make history! We were going to elect the first openly gay governor of Maine. We were going to elect Mike Michaud.

The drive was quiet but filled with excitement. It was Election Night 2014. When we walked through the doors of Port City Music Hall, I noticed a girl. She was quiet, standing with her stuffed tiger and wearing a sequined dress. The tiger had caught my attention. I had the same stuffy, when I was her age.

As the night went on, hopeful attitudes started to fade away. We were losing, not by much, but losing. I hurried to the room where Mike, my dad and his co-workers were working out the next move. He was going to concede, we were going to concede. It was over.

The decision was made.

I heard his footsteps first, then I saw him. It was Mike, he was walking onto the stage and the look on his face said it all. I didn’t want to be there, I wanted to be anywhere but there.

We were accepting defeat, a failure. We had lost.

I quietly slipped downstairs. I could hear everything, maybe even louder than upstairs. It was echoey and definitive. My attempt to get away only made it worse.

The room was mostly empty. People wanted to hear what Mike was going to say. They didn’t know, but I did. Only me and another girl remained, the girl in the sequined dress. She was crying.

I scanned the room hoping for someone to be there to help her. No one was, just me. I started on my way over when her dad walked out of the bathroom. I was relieved.

The girl’s dad knelt down next to her to see what was wrong. She had lost her tiger. I didn’t notice until then. Another kid had taken it, and it wasn’t coming back. I saw her dad speaking to her in a quiet voice. The girl continued to cry.

He said to her, “you know, the carousel never stops turning.” The girl in the sequined dress stood still and wiped her tears. She was done crying.

By this time, we could hear that Mike was coming to the end of his speech.

I focused on his voice, as did the little girl’s father. He said that this election was over, but fighting for what he stands for wasn’t. He said that no matter how many times we lose, or come up short, or don’t succeed that we must keep fighting, because without the fight nothing will ever change. The hard work continues.

He continued that we must continue moving forward because moving backward isn’t an option.

That’s when it clicked. I believe in moving forward. That moving back isn’t an option. That fighting for people to have better lives never stops. That people deserve someone to fight for them.

I believe the carousel never stops turning.

Gov. Paul LePage has proven himself to be the proto-Trump.

Since emerging on the political scene as the little-known mayor of Waterville, LePage has redefined politics in the state.

He has taken the crass, the racist, the untruthful and made it commonplace. He’s abused his authority, disregarded the law and the Constitution, and illegally used state resources.

He’s ignored voters by refusing to issue bonds, and he’s disregarded the rules of civil society that keep most governors from calling up political opponents and leaving homophobic and violent voicemails.

Maine has seen what President-elect Donald Trump’s administration is likely to look like.

President-elect Donald Trump and Gov. Paul LePage in Portland in March. Joel Page | Reuters

But here, the mechanisms of government have limited what the governor has been able to accomplish, and the damage that he’s been able to do. There have been checks on LePage’s worst ideas.

The governor has tried to do some terrible things. And many times he’s been stopped; his policies rolled back; his budgets rewritten; his vetoes overridden; his worst intentions thwarted.

After Republicans took control of the Blaine House, the state Senate and the state House, they rammed through legislation that would make it harder for people to vote.

He has proposed eliminating the income tax and abandoning decades of land conservation and environmental protection — formerly bipartisan ideals that had protected special places and Maine’s special brand through Republican, independent and Democratic administrations alike.

He’s attacked immigrants and poor people; called people of color the enemy; derided teachers and superintendents; tried to starve municipalities of revenue and siphon away money from public education.

His policies have done nothing to stop the hemorrhaging of jobs in rural Maine as paper mills have declined at an alarming rate. He’s done nothing to ease the impacts of a changing economy or climate change on fishermen, loggers or farmers. LePage ignores it all.

The governor is a master of the media that he hates. Reporters — ignored, berated, called names — suffer from Stockholm Syndrome and ask themselves: “Are we being fair to the governor?”

They want to be fair even when they know he manipulates them and lies and says things that should be unsayable.

And yet, because they are journalists and are dedicated to the ideals of their profession, they worry about objectivity sometimes to the detriment of truth.

The worst of outcomes haven’t occurred, though people are unnecessarily suffering. Children are going hungry, and progress on important issues such as conservation and education has stalled.

People have been hurt, but there’s been neither cataclysm nor recovery for economically depressed areas.

The reason is pretty simple: Maine voters and reasonable members of the Legislature have stood in the way.

When the Republicans overreached and tried to do away with same-day voter registration, the people rose up and restored voting rights.

They have extended marriage to all loving, committed same-sex couples.

They have passed bonds to invest in education and roads and bridges, to build the foundations for the future.

And this year, they passed new laws at the ballot box to raise the minimum wage, to increase funding for education, to reform the way we conduct elections, and they legalized the recreational use of marijuana.

Meanwhile, the governor has failed at least so far to gather the required signatures to place his own initiatives on the ballot.

Now, stung by the voters, the governor will push to undo their will in the Legislature by blocking the just-passed referenda, and he’ll try to make it harder for the voters to enact policies through referendum.

But where the bombastic LePage has been contained, President-elect Trump has few restraints.

Trump is a threat to the Republic. That was true before Election Day, and it’s true now. And unlike Maine, where the office of the governor is relatively weak, there are fewer checks on a president with his party in control of both the House of Representatives and the United States Senate.

LePage has been frustrated on many of his biggest initiatives, so the consequences of matching his words with action haven’t been felt to their full effect.

With Trump, the brake that can be applied to his extremism comes from Washington Republicans. So far, only a handful have shown they’re up for the job.

In Maine, opponents of LePage have been criticized — wrongly I think — for not offering a competing vision for the state and focusing too much attention on the governor’s big mouth.

But here’s my counter argument: We cannot allow the outrageous to become normal, even if it means we turn off some voters or play into the governor’s trap.

We cannot simply shrug and move on when LePage — or Trump — says or does something atrocious. Democrats and progressives surely need a competing narrative for the country, but we also must stand defiantly when these men attack our neighbors, our families and our communities with their policies and their words.

We must stand up to hatefulness and bigotry. Otherwise we risk the soul of our state and nation.

The temptation, beginning today and lasting right on through until that big bright ball drops in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, will be to put politics aside and to rejoice in the holidays.

After a long, hard-fought and divisive campaign, we could all use a little relief from the stress and the worry generated by the election and the coming Trump administration.

We’ll try talk about the things that matter to us most: family, friends, the spirit of giving and acceptance.

We’ll get distracted by Black Friday, big sales, new gadgets, holiday parties and the annual War on Christmas.

With all the merriment, food and drink – Eggnog anyone? A little more turkey? – we might even lose track of what’s happening in New York and Washington, D.C., assuming Ryan Seacrest hasn’t been secretly riding on buses with President-elect Donald Trump.

But the new Trump administration demands a level of attention and vigilance that means we can’t take the season off. Otherwise we risk coal in our stockings (but no rebirth of the coal industry).

Right now, he’s stocking the White House and Cabinet with a who’s who of dangerous white guys who have their sights set on undoing new overtime rules, weakening environmental regulations and launching a modern-day inquisition against religious minorities.

“Hey, pass the mashed potatoes.”

The unhinged conspiracy theorists, the Sandy Hook deniers, the white supremacists: They’ve all got something to be thankful for.

“Love the green bean casserole.”

And his friends in Congress are planning a quick strike that could upend our health care system in a way that might favor private markets but would be devastating to seniors, children, the poor and the sick – and frankly, just about everyone.

Their targets go well beyond Obamacare and include Medicare and Medicaid, too.

As Drew Altman wrote for the Wall Street Journal this week, “The larger story is GOP preparations for a health policy trifecta: to fundamentally change the ACA, Medicaid and Medicare – all three of health care’s major programs – and in the process, fundamentally alter the direction of the federal role in health and core elements of the social contract.”

As Altman makes clear, the proposed changes aren’t about making the current programs work better or cover more people, they’re about fundamentally altering the health care safety net in a way that will hurt millions of people. They really do want to keep government out of your Medicare (and trust me, that’s not a good thing.)

“Can I have the other turkey leg? And hand me the peas, please.”

And while we’re sitting around the Thanksgiving table, trying desperately not to talk politics, we might want to take a few minutes to think about some of the people in our lives who are really worried about what the next year will bring.

Our LGBT friends or relatives, our neighbors from Somalia, the couple who adopted two black or Asian babies, friends who will be celebrating Hanukkah, they all have reasons to be afraid.

Hate crimes have spiked since the election and there have even been high-profile incidents in Maine and who knows how many smaller, scary encounters that weren’t reported to the police.

The radical, dangerous bigots have been inspired and they’re out in the open.

“I think I’ll have some more wine.”

While it comes as a relief that Trump has said “he” won’t prosecute or investigate Hillary Clinton for her emails – very gracious, indeed – the decision really should be made based on the evidence, not the whim of the president.

“A toast to the passing of the rule of law, anyone?”

Even in those places where Democrats might find common ground with the new president, trouble lurks. Trump’s infrastructure plan is a tangled mess of potential corruption and is a complicated scheme that looks more likely to line the pockets of big business with tax breaks than rebuild the country’s roads, bridges and water systems.

And that’s before we even consider the pay-to-play and everyday corruption that could emerge from a president whose family runs a multinational business empire. Conflict of many interests.

“I think I’ll have another drink with dessert.”

From now until Jan. 20, Trump and his supporters will lay the groundwork for their agenda for the next four years. We’ll get our first look at just how big their appetite is.

“One more drink before bed. It’s Thanksgiving after all!”

If we tune out between now and the new year, the hangover we’re going to wake up with won’t be cured by an aspirin, a coffee and bacon.

It’ll take stronger medicine than that and our first chance to see a doctor won’t come until November 2018.

There is no question that the election of Donald Trump has given new energy and new power to angry, racist people in our country.

And with the elevation of Stephen Bannon to the highest levels of the White House and influence over the U.S. government, we are all being forced to reconsider how we use language to describe what we see and hear.

As a former journalist and now as a weekly columnist, it’s difficult to break years of training — and good manners — to call someone a racist, a misogynist, a bigot or a liar.

We often use language that skirts the topic a bit. We say the “comments were racist” or “he used a homophobic slur.”

Under the normal rules of political discourse, it was bad form — and ineffective — to call people names, even if the descriptors make clear what they are.

Trump, and Gov. Paul LePage here in Maine, have made such customary approaches to news coverage and commentary impossible. They simply no longer conform to the rules, which has given them an enormous advantage over other politicians and the news media, which has done its best to remain objective.

But the times are changing.

Stephen Bannon, the CEO of Donald Trump’s campaign whom Trump has tapped to serve as his chief strategist in the White House. Carlo Allegri | Reuters

This week, the Associated Press standards editor, the person in charge of setting editorial guidelines for one of the world’s most respected — and largest — news-gathering operations, released new guidance around using the term “alt-right” or “alternative right.”

I’ll summarize: John Daniszewski says that for the good of readers and for clarity, we have to stop dancing around such loosey-goosey words. Journalists have to tell the truth. They should “Be specific and call it straight.”

“Avoid using the term generically and without definition, however, because it is not well known and the term may exist primarily as a public-relations device to make its supporters’ actual beliefs less clear and more acceptable to a broader audience,” Daniszewski wrote this week. “In the past we have called such beliefs racist, neo-Nazi or white supremacist.”

He goes further, with a reminder or what good journalism should look like.

“Again, whenever ‘alt-right’ is used in a story, be sure to include a definition: ‘an offshoot of conservatism mixing racism, white nationalism and populism,’ or, more simply, ‘a white nationalist movement,’” Daniszewski wrote on the AP’s website.

“Finally, when writing on extreme groups, be precise and provide evidence to support the characterization,” he said. “We should not limit ourselves to letting such groups define themselves, and instead should report their actions, associations, history and positions to reveal their actual beliefs and philosophy, as well as how others see them.”

I’m guilty of this transgression myself. In a column earlier this year, I used the term “alt-right” as a way to avoid stating the obvious.

When you write anything that calls something or someone racist or speaks of white nationalism, you’re guaranteed vile blowback. And frankly, using such terms can immediately turn off some people, causing them to disregard the rest of the article or column.

But that’s not a good enough reason for journalists to contort themselves into knots trying to avoid offending some readers. The truth matters more.

As Daniszewski described it, “The movement criticizes ‘multiculturalism’ and more rights for non-whites, women, Jews, Muslims, gays, immigrants and other minorities. Its members reject the American democratic ideal that all should have equality under the law regardless of creed, gender, ethnic origin or race.”

It’s time to call such things what they are: racist.

If you say people of color are the enemy, as the governor has, you’re a racist.

Same thing if you lie and say that black people commit 90 percent of crime in the state when the numbers don’t back you up, if you encourage violence against black men, and if you say immigrants carry disease and are terrorists.

You’re not part of the “alt-right.” Let’s be precise: You’re a racist.

When I was studying journalism in college, we would have near daily tests on the Associated Press Stylebook. We called it the “bible,” and we did our best to uphold its tenets.

Even now, many years removed from my days as a reporter and an editor, I keep a copy of the Stylebook close to help me sort out tricky questions of grammar and usage, and I keep the online tool on my phone. The AP still sets the standard for getting it right.

As our country and the news media adapt to the new world of a Trump presidency, I expect many more rules around how we cover politics and government will have to change.

The president-elect’s unprecedented lying and white nationalist rhetoric were just the beginning. We’ll all have to adapt and resist a new order that pushes the bounds of truth, decency and governance to their very limits.