March 31, 2013  Michael Cuzzi: Wanting to be re-elected drives
LePage's reversals  The governor's recent about-faces show he
gets that Maine voters prefer cooperation.  Gov. LePage is
hardly known for retreating. Yet, in recent weeks, the governor
has made some significant political reversals, including
introducing a new bond proposal, expressing interest in Medicaid
expansion and reneging on his paralysis-by-veto threat.
Michael Cuzzi is a former campaign aide to President Obama,
Secretary of State John Kerry and former U.S. Rep. Tom Allen. He
manages the Portland office of VOX Global, a strategic
communications and public affairs firm.  What's going on here?
In a word: re-election.  For all his previous bluster and
disdain for "politics," it turns out the governor is actually a
calculating politician who understands that ideological rigidity
is decidedly less expedient as re-election approaches.  Flying
in the face of two years of passionate anti-bonding rhetoric,
the governor's new bond proposal is a str