I’ll say this for Paul LePage: the man has a way with words, in the same manner that my cat has a way with horking up a hairball in the middle of the night, right at the edge of a carpet but not close enough to make it to the hardwood floor. They both make you sit up and pay attention.

It’s been 10 years since the former governor said guys by the name of “D-Money, Smoothie and Shifty” were coming up to Maine to sell drugs and “impregnate young white women.” My family still makes jokes about guys named Smoothie and Shifty.

Like a particularly pernicious foot fungus, LePage has once again returned, his double-digit loss to Janet Mills having failed to dissuade him from seeking political office again. (And you know what, good for him, I guess. It’s an important skill to be able to get back in the saddle and try again.)

His latest, um, quip was that Democrats want to “permanently put you in economic slavery,” uttered at the Maine Republican State Convention. LePage didn’t define “economic slavery,” so I’m not entirely sure what he’s talking about. Also, isn’t pretty much all slavery economic? Performing involuntary, unpaid labor that other people profit from?

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