Imagine that the future well—being of your state is handed by 38% of its voters to a governor who tells the NAACP to "kiss my butt"; who jokes that the worst his lax policies on toxic chemicals in consumer products will do is cause women to grow "little beards"; who falsely claims that an active wind turbine is fake and run by "a little electric motor"; and who loudly condemns your state's public schools as the worst in the nation while a national news magazine is ranking them among the best.
Maine's governor Paul LePage has said all those things and much more in his stormy tenure. As disclosed for the first time in this book, he also spent 13 hours in 2013 in private meetings with conspiracy theorists discussing what he would do if the federal government allowed Russian troops to invade North America, while at the same time claiming that he had no time to meet with legislative leaders.
For the past 3½ years, Maine has been a laboratory for Tea Party governance. When a movement defined by its distrust of government is handed the keys to a state, what happens next?
As Maine Went examines Paul LePage's record to answer the question that matters most: Is he making Maine a better place?

Mike Tipping writes about Maine politics and policy with a focus on analysis and explanation. He works at the Maine People's Alliance and Maine People s Resource Center, writes a political column for the Portland Press Herald and is @miketipping on Twitter. He is the author of The Tipping Point blog on the website of the Bangor Daily News. He lives in Westbrook, Maine.

"Here is political reporting and analysis at its best without shrieks and full of facts to back up what the author is saying. The first chapter is a barn burner that gripped me from the moment I started reading. Mike Tipping dispassionately but devastatingly dissects the career and antics of Maine's arch right wing Governor Paul LePage." —Neil Rolde, Maine author, historian, and politician
"Hats off to Mike Tipping for stepping back from the daily barrage of headlines and diving deeply into the political phenomenon that is Governor Paul LePage. From health care and education to buffaloes and black flies, As Maine Went paints an informative and often troubling portrait of one of Maine s most unforgettable public figures." —Bill Nemitz, columnist, Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram.