While most experienced politicians assiduously avoid racially tinged remarks, Republican Maine Gov. Paul LePage's short career in public office has been marked by comments and feuds that outrage political opponents — and, like GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump Donald John TrumpBiden leads Trump by 36 points nationally among Latinos: poll Trump dismisses climate change role in fires, says Newsom needs to manage forest better Jimmy Kimmel hits Trump for rallies while hosting Emmy Awards MORE, by a steadfast refusal to apologize when his language crosses a line.

ADVERTISEMENT

This week, LePage made national headlines again, after he left an obscene voicemail for a political opponent. On Friday, LePage suggested that "people of color" are the enemy in Maine's fight against an influx of illegal drugs.

For LePage, a political neophyte who swept to power during the 2010 Republican congressional wave, the harsh glare of the national spotlight is familiar. Though he governs one of the whitest states in America — 95 percent of Mainers are white, according to the U.S. Census Bureau — LePage has angered whites and minorities alike.

Among LePage's more controversial comments:

> In January 2011, just 10 days after taking office, LePage told a Portland television reporter he would not be attending Martin Luther King Jr. Day events because he considered the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) a special-interest group. "Tell 'em to kiss my butt," LePage said of the NAACP.

> Two months later, LePage ordered the removal of an 11-panel mural from the state Labor Department. The mural depicted moments from the state's history, including a nod to Frances Perkins, a Mainer who became the first woman to serve in a president's Cabinet when Franklin Roosevelt nominated her to become secretary of Labor. LePage also renamed a meeting room honoring Perkins.

> Many of LePage's impolitic comments, and clashes with constituents, have come during town hall meetings he holds across the state. In April 2012, LePage answered a constituent's question about license fees by criticizing state employees as "about as corrupt as you can be." In a letter following the inevitable firestorm, LePage clarified that some bureaucrats were dragging their feet because they didn't like the direction his administration was going.

"I think it was a pretty poor choice of words, and probably he would agree," state Sen. David Hastings, a Republican, told the Portland Press Herald. LePage did not apologize.

> In a weekly radio address in July 2012, LePage compared the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) with the Gestapo, Hitler's secret police, while outlining his opposition to the Affordable Care Act. At a fundraiser a few days later, LePage acknowledged that the Gestapo killed Jews during the Holocaust. "Maybe the IRS is not quite as bad — yet," he said. LePage actually apologized for that one, in his radio address the following week.

> A year later, LePage said state Sen. Troy Jackson, a Democrat, had "no brains" and "a black heart" after Jackson offered the Democratic alternative to LePage's budget proposal. Then LePage went further: "Sen. Jackson claims to be for the people, but he's the first one to give it to the people without providing Vaseline," LePage said. Even Republicans called the comments inappropriate.

> LePage has maintained a frosty relationship with state newspapers during his six years in office. In July 2011, he told reporters they "tend to not like to write the truth." A year later, he told high-school students that reading a state newspaper "is like paying someone to lie to you."

In August 2013, while touring a Pratt and Whitney facility that builds engines for F-35 fighter jets, LePage hopped in a flight simulator. Asked what he wanted to do, LePage said: "I want to find the [Portland] Press Herald building and blow it up." LePage told a television reporter he actually had two targets, the Press Herald and the Bangor Daily News.

> The Republican has had a testy relationship with the Obama administration. In 2013, LePage said President Obama "hates white people," according to two Republican state representatives who overheard the remark at a private fundraiser. LePage denied making the remark, and later he said in an official statement he didn't believe Obama disliked any racial group.

> Earlier this year, LePage said drug traffickers who were bringing heroin into Maine were "guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty." He added, "Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave."

He initially denied he meant to make racially tinged comments, though he seemed to counter that denial in a radio interview days later: "I had to go scream at the top of my lungs about black dealers coming in and doing the things that they're doing to our state," LePage said.

LePage also had a suggestion for gun-owning Mainers who wanted to tackle the heroin epidemic on their own: "Load up and get rid of the drug dealers," he said.