Other political operatives from different parts of the state have told me much the same thing. Even in a Portland suburb, where Democrats hold a decided edge, a Dem legislative candidate said she’d encountered a surprising amount of concern about Michaud’s sexuality. “There’s a latent undercurrent out there,” she said. “It’s not showing up in the polls, but it feels real, and it’s not working in [Michaud’s] favor.”
What is showing in the polls is that Michaud is trailing Republican Governor Paul LePage in the 2nd District. Political experts have tended to attribute that to the area’s conservative tendencies being more in line with LePage’s agenda. But that ignores the fact that Michaud has frequently run against congressional candidates who were as far to the right as LePage—or even further—and he defeated them all by landslide margins. The current polling numbers can’t be explained away simply by ideology.
Mainers, like most people, are reluctant to admit their social shortcoming. Most of us still refuse to acknowledge our long history of racism regarding the Indians. We’ve couched our negative comments about recent immigrants from troubled parts of Africa in economic terms (we can’t afford the welfare and education costs), even though those arguments were never raised in the 1980s and ‘90s when we absorbed influxes of refugees from eastern Europe, most of whom were white. And we’re careful to keep our politically incorrect thoughts about our gay and lesbian neighbors to ourselves, at least when we’re in public.
But there’s no place as private as the voting booth. And it’s there our true selves will be revealed.
Which may be to Mike Michaud’s detriment.
Emails that begin, “I’m not homophobic, but …” may be directed totrashcan@herniahill.net.
