The Mind of Les Otten

So recently Les Otten was at the University of Maine (Thursday to be exact). He was attending the College Republican's meeting which was below 25 in attendance. One thing I have to mention simply for purposes of humor, no ill intention here at all, is in regards to his assistants. The two staffers he had there were both female, high heels, tight dresses, tall, and skinny. I thought a reunion of Guliani's wives was taking place.
The humor of the event ends there. He opened with asking us what we all thought about Global Warming. After listening to our varying viewpoints he summarized our concerns on the issue as:

Well, regardless of what you believe about Global Warming, oil is going to run out so it won't really matter either way. What we need to do is focus on oil.

Paraphrasing over. Thanks for saying you don't really care what we think. It went down hill from there. Among (paraphrasing) his most notable ideas we have the following:

Obama "stole" the Republican idea on nuclear power because of Scott Brown.

If Maine doubled electricity usage our cost would drop 25% due to infrastructure usage.

We should have excellent schools because we don't have any minority populations to "drag us down".

Lack of ethnic diversity is a problem for Maine.

We should have one superintendant per county.

We need to stop "sending money to, pardon me for saying this, Saudi Arabia".

We can build an East-West highway without state or federal funds."

Maine's mentality of a white majority is a minority viewpoint in the world.

If you're obese we won't pay your health care.

Summary over. Les Otten has little common sense.

On the topic of guns Les stated "I like guns". He said that Maine hates New Hampshire and vise versa. He also supports gambling as long as it doesn't create a monopoly. Good or bad he said these things as well.

He also spoke of "anticipatory tax credits" which is basically a "cash for ...." style program but instead of getting the credit at purchase like the Cash for Clunkers program it would be deducted on the tax returns.

Meanwhile he is very partisan. Otten continually said he goes along with Republicans even after they may take stands on issues harmful to their public opinion. He mentioned that Democrats don't fight each other and Republicans shouldn't either by moving onto issues Republicans are united on.

On the issue of having a massive donation to his own campaign from...himself Mr. Otten replied by saying he has the largest number of supporters. So, with LePage saying he has 4,000 "foot soldiers" and Otten claiming to have the most supporters I challenge the candidates to start gathering some information on their mailing lists and petition signatures.

The victory by Bruce Poliquin at the first Republican primary/caucus at Manchester was unanimous and thus securing 13 votes at the Maine Republican caucus. I consider that to be a solid sign of things to come. Poliquin leading in donors and total funds in his campaign is also a sign of leading the pack. If the other candidates would prove publicly that they have the grass roots support to beat Poliquin I challenge them to do so.

Through this process of listening to Les Otten speak to the College Republicans there was much silence when time came for questioning. Improvisation was done and the group moved forward but Otten did not connect to the people in the room. He had our ears but not our hearts and certainly not my support. Otten doesn't care about the people of Maine, or even the Republican going door to door supporting conservative ideas. He cares about the Republican leadership approving of him and has a belittling tone of conversation.

I was annoyed that he spoke to us like children. Asking our opinion and telling us it didn't matter because of something else was very insulting. Lecturing to us not about his stance on an issue but on what he wants us to know about an issue is presuming we are ignorant to not only what we believe about things but also in being aware of things.

Lastly, Mr. Otten said he will never speak ill of a fellow Republican. I'm sorry Otten but if a Republican kills someone I'm going to call them a murderer. If they steal I'm going to call them a thief. If they say a lack of ethnic diversity is a problem I'm going to call them a racist who should focus on a real problem.

If a Republican lacks common sense I'm going to call them Les Otten.