I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. As the sun rose on Giving Tuesday, my email inbox began filling up with pleas, exhortations, winks and nods – all carefully calibrated to ricochet directly off my heart and into my wallet.
The National Parks Conservation Association offered a twofer – for every dollar I donated, one of its board members would match it.
The New Ways Ministry in Mount Rainier, Maryland, sought my help “to make meaningful change in the Catholic Church for LGBT people!”
Then there was Worldreader, which advocates for mobile readers in the developing world and offered me an interview with its Princeton-educated founder, David Risher.
But nobody – and I mean nobody – could match the Giving Tuesday pitch of the Maine Heritage Policy Center, the place where Maine’s true conservatives gather to make themselves feel like they’re perfectly sane and it’s the rest of us who are out of our minds.
“In many ways, a think tank is like a super hero,” wrote Matt Gagnon, the center’s CEO, at the top of his appeal. “Sure, we can’t fly and we don’t run around the office in capes, but we do use our power to protect everyday people … like you. Except instead of super villains or mad scientists, we take on the real bad guys – wasteful government, higher taxes, and cronyism.”
Gagnon goes on to sing his organization’s praises: “When politicians let you down, MHPC is there, consistently promoting conservative policies.”
Then, ever so predictably, he comes after me (which I find particularly offensive since he’s simultaneously asking me for money): “When the liberal mainstream media gives in to progressive spin, MHPC is there to counter it with The Maine Wire, our conservative news and opinion service.”
Now I admit it’s been awhile since I visited The Maine Wire. So, in the interest of fairness and balance, I clicked onto the site Tuesday to see what they’ve been up to lately.
Their lead story: “Maine Still Struggling to Improve Business Tax Climate.” Long story short, it’s the Legislature’s fault.
Next up: “New Study: Obamacare Fails to Meet Expectations.” The study was done by George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, which has received tens of millions in funding from the ultraconservative billionaires Charles and David Koch. ‘Nuff said.
Another story, posted twice in case you miss it, isn’t exactly breaking news: “LePage Criticizes President Obama’s Decision to Accept Syrian Refugees.” (Question: Do refugees qualify as “everyday people” in the eyes of the Maine Heritage Policy Center?)
I scrolled on … pausing briefly to note U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin’s scathing critique of President Obama over the ISIS crisis (to which I can only imagine Obama responding, “Bruce who?”) … when I finally hit something truly groundbreaking – a piece by Liam Sigaud, a “policy analyst” with the Maine Heritage Policy Center.
The headline: “Sigaud: Is Trump Part of Hillary’s Strategy?”
Sigaud, described as “an experienced researcher in the health policy field” with a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Maine at Augusta, offers three “interpretations” of Donald Trump’s headline-a-minute candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination.
The first, he writes, is that the Trump campaign is “little more than a farce designed to indulge his cravings for the media spotlight.”
Fair enough.
The second is that “his candidacy is being driven by his anger at the state of the country, and conviction that he can set it right. His unorthodox campaigning style and off-color remarks are seen as carefully crafted to appeal to the embittered and disillusioned within the Republican fold.”
Again, not outside the realm of possibility.
“But a third alternative remains possible – that Donald Trump is a liberal determined to get Hillary Clinton elected president,” continues Sigaud. “It’s a conclusion based on a few obvious facts.”
Uh-oh. I feel a superhero coming on.
Those facts, according to Sigaud, range from Trump’s complete lack of conservative bona fides – he’s been married three times, once called George W. Bush “evil,” supported an assault-weapons ban and “during an appearance at the Family Leadership Summit in July, he said he wasn’t sure he had ever sought God’s forgiveness and inartfully referred to Communion as ‘my little wine … and my little cracker.'”
Oh yes, and Trump invited Bill and Hillary to his 2005 wedding and once advocated for single-payer health care.
Sigaud’s theory is that Trump will somehow win both the Republican nomination and the general election and “govern as the liberal he is” or, upon getting on the November ballot, drop out before the general election and simply hand the White House over to Hillary.
I swear I’m not making this stuff up. These are Maine’s superheroes talking.
But back to Giving Tuesday.
“With your support, we will defeat the liberal establishment that has held Maine back for decades and save Mainers from a lifetime of welfare dependency,” Gagnon wrote in his email blast.
He might also work on balancing the center’s budget: According to filings with the Internal Revenue Service in 2013, the most recent year available, the center took in revenues totaling $661,260. The same year, it posted $710,251 in expenses – a deficit of $48,991.
Now I’m going to go way out on a limb here and bet $50 that not one dime of that money went to anything remotely resembling a program that actually helps Mainers who are down get back on their feet.
Prove me wrong and I’ll send the check to Maine Heritage Policy Center in a heartbeat.
If I’m right, I expect them to send $50 to Preble Street or some other local agency dedicated to helping the neediest among us survive the oncoming Maine winter.
In the spirit of Giving Tuesday, it’s the least a superhero can do.
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