In May, he’s reported to have told the Board of Overseers of the Bar, “I am a young and sometimes naïve idealist. I was thinking with my heart and not my head.”
Whatever part of his body Carey uses for cognitive functions, it must be accustomed to sudden shifts. As of July 7, he’s once again officially heading both Evergreen and the casino campaign. Unofficially, of course, he never left either post. In spite of repeated statements by Carey’s spokesperson, Pat LaMarche (there’s a name that often comes up, when the conversation turns to political ineptness), that a new Evergreen president and campaign chairman would be named momentarily, the months slipped by with no such announcement. In the meantime, Carey ran things behind the scenes.
“It’s still my baby and I’ve sacrificed a lot for it,” he told the Lewiston Sun Journal, after dropping the pretense that he’d ever stepped aside. “I will see it to the end.”
The end may be near.
A poll released last week shows the casino losing in a landslide. And once the public learns the details of Carey’s scheme to make himself rich, it can only get worse. His referendum would remove most of the state’s current limits on gaming as they apply to his Oxford County House of Improbable Odds. It would also reduce the minimum age for gambling from 21 to 19. In addition, Carey wants a monopoly. If his legislation is approved by voters, he’d be granted a 10-year exclusive right to operate a casino in Maine.
There’s more foolishness hidden behind this referendum question, language Carey apparently doesn’t think anybody will notice. He’s wrong about that.
But then, he mostly is.
Set me right by e-mailingaldiamon@herniahill.net.
