Some who have followed the recent career of Dan Demeritt ’94, communications director for Maine Governor Paul LePage, might say that Demeritt, owner of an Augusta pizza shop, jumped from the frying pan into the fire. You wouldn’t know it by talking to Demeritt. A longtime staffer for Sen. Susan Collins, the spokesperson for Maine’s outspoken governor is calm where his boss can be volatile, cautious where the governor sometimes shoots from the hip, unflappable where his boss, well, is not. “When you spend time running a small business,” Demeritt said, “you’re much better at taking things in stride, knowing to focus on the stuff that really matters. My approach has always been, with the governor, to try to put as much information out as I can and try to make it as easy as possible for the press to tell the whole story. So it doesn’t just turn on a phrase.”
general election. The Colby government major (he recalls attending a rally for thenPresident George H.W. Bush and hosting a political talk show on WMHB “at seven o’clock on Friday mornings”) had moved back to Maine a decade ago from Washington, where he had worked in Collins’s Senate office. Now he was married, with twins, almost 3, and a baby. After working for the House Republicans in Maine, he’d opened a restaurant and owned rental properties. His only political aspiration, he said, was to someday run for the Maine Legislature. Then word came through the Republican grapevine that the LePage campaign needed communications help. Two hours later, Demeritt was back in politics. He’d never been the public face of a politician, but his experience as Collins’s political director was brought to bear— along with his years running his own business. “I think I have a good handle on Paul
“This job is like a baseball umpire. If you know the umpire’s name at the end of the game, he probably didn’t do a good job.” Dan Demeritt ’94, communications director for Maine’s governor The governor’s turns of phrase have made news across the country and beyond, provoking widespread protest and some praise. “Paul’s very free-spoken, and there were a couple of stretches there where he’d free-spoken himself into a little trouble,” Demeritt said. “I think I came in at a time when I was able to help with the message discipline a little bit. And provide some energy to the campaign.” This was in September 2010, before the
LePage, and I think it’s been because I’ve been an entrepreneur myself,” Demeritt said. “I get it.” LePage, former general manager of Maine’s Marden’s Surplus & Salvage chain, won on a platform of cutting spending and making Maine more business-friendly. He also showed a penchant for off-the-cuff remarks that sometimes overshadowed his policy goals. His comment telling the NAACP to “kiss my butt” went viral, as did
photo by robert P. hernandez
Speaking for Maine’s Governor
Dan Demeritt ’94
his remark that BPA, an ingredient in plastics that mimics estrogen and is believed by many to be hazardous, particularly to women and children, would only cause “some women to have little beards.” Demeritt landed in the news after these flash fires, though he sees his job as managing what other people say, not standing in front of a microphones. “This job is like a baseball umpire,” he said. “If you know the umpire’s name at the end of the game, he probably didn’t do a good job.” Taking the comment du jour in stride, Demeritt focused on the big picture, the platform. “I’ve said it to him. He can’t be a successful status-quo governor. He either works and gets things done and people embrace the results, or if it’s just status quo—I think he’s not the right person to lead a status-quo administration. “I think the plainspoken-ness works if you’re getting stuff done. I don’t think it works if you’re just minding the store.” —G.B.
Postdoc on Mideast Exchange
Four Profs Receive Tenure
Sarah Lashley, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Environmental Human Rights, is part of a highly selective State Department exchange program. Across Borders: Managing Trans-Boundary Environmental Resources in the Middle East and the United States, entails a four-week summer trip to Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Egypt.
Four faculty members were granted tenure in January, and all will be promoted to associate professor in September. Brief bios are online at www.colby.edu/mag, keyword Tenure2011. They are: Hideko Abe, East Asian studies, Ph.D. from Arizona State; James Behuniak Jr., philosophy, Ph.D., from Hawaii at Manoa; Adrian Blevins, creative writing, M.F.A. from Warren Wilson; and Andreas Waldkirch, economics, Ph.D. from Boston College.
Read more: www.colby.edu/mag, keyword: Lashley.
Colby / SPring 2011 7
CM_01-09.indd 7
4/8/11 2:45 PM