A new day dawns on Maine and, like a bridesmaid hungover from last night’s festivities, she looks across the bed and thinks, “What have I done?”

It turns out there was a GOP wave in state politics, but it wasn’t led by Paul LePage. Instead, it swept through State Senate and House of Representatives returning both chambers to GOP control for the first time since 1974. On it’s way it happened to deposit Paul LePage in the Governorship like flotsam on a beach, as he eeked out a 1% victory with just over 38% of the vote. Later today, I’ll have a little more about what AMGers think about candidates that get 38% of the vote. But regardless of the margin, Governor LePage and his party have complete control of the State.

Maine Republicans will write the budget.

Maine Republicans will choose judges.

Maine Republicans will run state agencies.

Maine Republicans will finally, and hopefully forever, end Maine’s oppressive buffalo counting regulations.

We even get another AMGer in the legislature as Beth O’Connor won her race. Fortunately, some AMGers were not so lucky: Traci Gauthier (of ‘the Downeaster train is like the holocaust’ fame) did not win her race for State Senate.

What to expect?

Well, I think we’re going to see Republicans learn math real quick and immediately take steps to decrease expectations. Cutting taxes significantly AND balancing the budget just isn’t going to work, especially with Federal funds due to begin drying up as the stimulus winds down.

I will also be interested to see how Dana Graham, former head of the Maine State Employees Union, feels about his endorsement of LePage when the first Republican budget passes. I will never understand that boneheaded endorsement. It’s like sheep endorsing the wolves. Good luck, buddy. Let us know how it works out.

It will be even more interesting to see which Republicans end up claiming the hundreds of appointments that are going to happen. Although I’m sure there are plenty of qualified persons out there, the fact that Republicans have been out of power for so long in the state means the Republican bench of experienced public servants is sort of depleted. Will we end up with people like Michael Pajak in charge of some commission in Augusta? Will people like Traci Gauthier, who have steadfastly supported the Maine GOP, get a job in government that they might deserve on the basis of party loyalty but maybe shouldn’t get because they’re, well, nutty? Tom C in charge of a blue ribbon commission studying women’s issues and the legal system? I’m betting some marginal talent ends up landing in nice places as the LePage governorship begins.

Lastly, and most importantly, we are going to see the giant tangled crashing mess between what the Republican base wants and what is possible in reality. I’m not kidding. The space between LePage’s promises and the money needed for them was around $1.8 billion, if I recall. That is a solid quarter of the budget, even including Federal outlays. So the $1.8 billion dollar question is whether the AMGer-type Republican will be satisfied when LePage lowers taxes modestly, cuts spending modestly, and otherwise implements modest reforms. Will they blame LePage? Unlikely. More likely, some moderate Republicans in the legislature are going to take the fall. So if I’m a moderate Republican legislator right now and I’m concerned with, you know, actually understanding government and making it work, I might look around and wonder whether I’m the fall guy.

Lessons learned?

Both parties in Maine should learn some lessons. For Republicans, I think the lesson they should learn but won’t want to hear is that picking the most conservative guy to run for office is NOT a good idea. Look, LePage won. But he needed a lot of luck to do it.

He needed moderates and liberals to split their ticket. And even then, the Cutler surge was surprisingly strong. LePage is probably pretty lucky the surge came so late. If the polls had showed Cutler tied consistently with LePage a couple weeks out from the election, I think another ten thousand Mitchell voters would have jumped ship and held their nose to vote for Cutler, thus tipping the election to him. Easily. Mitchell got over 100,000 votes.

And while I was certainly never impressed at Baldacci’s 38% vote total in 2006, I personally felt that the independent candidate at the time, Barbara Merrill, was close enough to my philosophy that I would have been okay with her as Governor. So basically, over 50% of the vote was within my philosophical tolerance and produced a Governor.

In this election, Cutler joined with Mitchell on many social issues. His appeal to Democrats is readily apparent; he sucked votes from Libby Mitchell like a giant vote Dyson. So I think it is fair to note that while Baldacci won with 38% and another similar candidate drew an additional 20% in 2006, here in 2010 LePage drew 38% and… that’s it. 38% of Mainers want pretty much the exact opposite policy of the other 62% on everything, but the 38% gets to call the shots for the next four years.

The lessons for Democrats are harder to stomach right now, but there are some silver linings. First, the national Republican party is still less than enticing to Maine voters. Pingree and Michaud won handidly. The national wave did not reach us.

Second: respect political trends. This was not a good year for incumbents. Maybe Libby Mitchell, no matter how nice she is (and I really like her), was not the right candidate. She could not maintain the coalition between the Democratic base and the liberal-leaning swath of the middle that has won Maine elections for decades. And this wasn’t really a surprise- it was apparent that this was a bad year for “the establishment” well before the primary. Sure, she could have gotten lucky- a little better polling at the right time, and the Cutler surge might have been the Libby surge (it was really an anti-LePage surge, I surmise). But why handicap yourself from the get-go with an establishment candidate?

I’ll admit that I didn’t see it at the time either- I voted for Steve Rowe in the primary, who isn’t exactly shiny and new. But I’ll say now that maybe Rosa Scarcelli was the best candidate for this election.

Lemonade!

There is always a bright side. Here’s mine: Dan Billings for Attorney General.

I said it first.