Anatomy of a Successful Campus Talk

As he puts it, Paul LePage, former governor of Maine, is a product of his environment. His father was physically abusive, his mother terrified to intervene. He grew up in poverty, one of eighteen children, and the only one to complete formal schooling beyond the eighth grade. By age eleven, sick of the abuse, he decided to leave home and fend for himself. He spent two years homeless, sometimes sleeping in horse stables in the frigid Maine winters. LePage shared many of these autobiographical details with the audience when he recently came to speak at Colby College, where I teach. He sees his approach to politics as no-nonsense; I think he just says a lot of ignorant and bigoted things. For this reason he’s not a good choice of campus speaker, though an unexpected factor made the LePage event a success: the student protesters.

I have at once a deep sense of compassion for LePage, given the circumstances of his upbringing, and a low opinion of the man he’s