The Boothbay Republican Caucus met Monday, Jan. 29 at the Boothbay Town Office hosting Kenneth Fredette, gubernatorial candidate, and Dana Dow, incumbent up for reelection for Maine Senate District 20. Also present were Zach Lingley, campaign manager for gubernatorial candidate Mary Mayhew, and Lauren LePage, campaign manager for gubernatorial candidate Shawn Moody.

Both candidates and both campaign managers spoke on their candidates’ respective stances on many issues with all pushing the message of statewide and national unity in the GOP come what may in the primary elections in June.

Lingley represented candidate Mayhew’s interests introducing her six and a half year tenure as the Maine Health and Human Services commissioner in Gov. Paul LePage’s administration.

“It’s been a million miles an hour (on the campaign trail),” said Lingley. “Mary is a hard worker. She turned the financial house around ...”

Lingley praised Mayhew for putting through work requirements for recipients of food stamps mandating that any “able bodied person under the age of 50” must either be looking for a job, volunteering, or going to school.

“It went from 9,000 folks to just over 3,000, a massive drop in people on food stamps,” said Lingley. “President Trump comes into office last January and Mary wrote him a letter … (saying) this is what we did with food stamps, this is what we want to do with Medicaid, we want to make a work requirement. Just 10 days or so ago … the president said ‘Hey, let’s do this in every state’ and issued a directive that this is the right thing.”

“What was the reason for the drop in EBT,” John Bertolet asked from the audience.

“Folks went back to work,” said Lingley.

Kenneth Fredette spoke at length about his tenure in the State House of Representatives as House Republican leader, a title he earned after serving only one term as a freshman representative on the Appropriations Committee. Fredette also shared some of his backstory. He was born in Houlton and raised in Danforth and was the first in his family to graduate college. He has a bachelor of science degree from the University of Maine-Machias, a juris doctorate from the UMaine School of Law, and a master’s in public administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Fredette said he and Lingley worked together to recruit people to run for state legislature in 2012 when the number of House Republicans was 58 out of 151. When he was elected House Republican Leader, the number of Republican House Representatives rose from from 58 to 68.

“Then we hit a presidential campaign and historically we don’t win House seats on the Republican side in presidential election cycles, but we were able to win three, only the third time since 1948.”

At 71 House members, the Republicans were only five members short of a majority.

“We’ve been able to do some great things over the last six years because of that,” said Fredette, citing the $400 million income tax cut in his first session as a freshman legislator, a feat during a time when revenue was recoiling due to the recession.

Fredette also cited accomplishments such as fixing the near-bankrupt state pension fund, the push to pay back over $250 million in debt to hospitals across the state, and edging Democrats on major budget negotiations.

“You may recall that House Republicans shut down state government because there was a needless tax increase on the lodging tax in that budget … There was a $400 million spending increase and we thought ‘That’s enough, we don’t need to spend more money.’ That was what I was able to do as the House Republican Leader for the last six years.”

LePage introduced Moody, owner of the Moody’s Collision chain, as a “lifelong, common sense conservative and a job creator,” saying Moody has chosen to run for governor because he wants to see all Mainers have the opportunity for a successful life and career. Moody grew up in a trailer park in Gorham with a single mother who was often ill. He and his brothers began working at young ages to support the family, and a 13-year-old Moody found himself tinkering with cars in his neighbor’s garage. Fixing automobiles on his family’s property, Moody bought his first piece of land at 17 where the flagship garage of his now 11 locations sits. LePage highlighted that Moody’s Collision has been rated the best place to work in Maine twice and, staying true to his philosophy of enabling those in situations he had experienced as a youngster, created an employee ownership stock option for his business. Thirty percent of Moody’s Collision is now owned by its employees.

“Shawn knows that Maine’s success for years is dependent on growing our economy, creating jobs and improving wages for people all over Maine … He believes that Gov. LePage was the right guy for the job eight years ago, but we cannot afford to lose this seat which is why I think everyone of us will tell you on June 13, we’ll all be on the same page fighting to move forward.”

LePage said Moody is committed to “killing red tape,” creating surpluses and keeping Maine living within its means, as an independent voice from politicians in Augusta.

Dow launched his stump speech explaining that he began noticing the classification of school sports teams was changing, so he compared population over time by examining school population. He noted that in 1970, the school population of K-12 students was 240,000 and today it is lower than 185,000.

“Where have they all gone? Well, the young families left and took them,” said Dow. He said the one big change in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when population began dropping off, was the income tax.

“I think it was a breaking point for Northern Maine. We’re still about the eleventh highest taxed income in the country and we’re about thirtieth in income … Something’s wrong.Why aren’t we eleventh in income if we’re going to be taxed as eleventh or why aren’t we taxed at thirtieth if we’re thirtieth in income?”

Dow said that as hard as Republicans tried, they were not able to get any legislation through to reflect the national averages and they had to fight the three percent tax increase to keep things as they are, claiming that Democrats wished to see jobs and families leave Maine. Dow lamented the impending referendum which, if passed, will see taxes increase for those making more than $125,000 per year.

“Guess what people are going to do? They’re going to vote – with their feet – and leave,” Dow said. “We want businesses in Maine? How about a zero corporate tax? That will bring them in.”

Both candidates and campaign managers harmonized on many positions, but none more so than the need for party unity.

“Everything’s roses right now because we haven’t hit the tough stuff … we’re going to start in on the hard stuff pretty soon. Things are going to go up to the wire,” said Dow.

Said Fredette, “If we’re going to accomplish a mission, everybody’s got to be on the same page and that’s something that Republicans need to do … We can’t accomplish the things we need to do for businesses without being on the same page. If we’re going to be Republicans, we’ve got to act like Republicans.”