The Maine People’s Alliance is typically associated with its pursuit of a progressive agenda: universal health care, environmental protection, immigrant rights and marriage equality.

But over the last several weeks, the liberal activist group generated headlines with two sharp rebukes of Republican Gov.-elect Paul LePage that raise questions about the nonprofit’s potential role in spearheading a Democratic opposition campaign.

Last week, the MPA blasted LePage for including in his transition advisory team Pete Harring, or “Pete the Carpenter,” a Standish man who heads the tea party group Maine Refounders and who posted controversial comments about U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine — a frequent tea party target — and liberal Democrats on his website.

Within hours of the announcement that Harring was included on LePage’s transition team, the MPA pounced, calling Harring an “extremist” whose only qualifications where “anger and his tea party connections.”

The group reacted similarly earlier this month after Tarren Bragdon, a LePage team member and CEO of the right-wing think tank Maine Heritage Policy Center, quipped that the state-run health care program Dirigo would be “Diri-gone” under the LePage administration.

That the MPA would publicly rip a LePage team member for comments about Dirigo makes sense. The group is an aggressive proponent of a single-payer system. In addition to getting rid of Dirigo, LePage has said that he’d challenge the constitutionality of the national health care law.

But the MPA’s denunciation of “Pete the Carpenter” appeared to signal a new tack. Unlike Bragdon, whose organization has published position papers on welfare, taxation and health care, Harring doesn’t appear to represent any specific challenge to the MPA’s policy initiatives (“DRILL BABY DRILL!” is about as specific a policy Harring proposes on his website biography.).

It’s also worth noting that Democrats at the state capital have remained mostly silent throughout the controversies.

Last week, Rep. Emily Cain, D-Orono, the incoming House minority leader, was markedly cautious when asked about the elimination of Dirigo and a legal challenge to the health care law, a suit considered by both Republican candidates vying to become the state’s next attorney general.

The Democrats were also quiet even when presented with an opportunity to hammer state Rep. Robert Nutting, the Oakland Republican expected to become the next speaker of the Maine House of Representatives who six years ago overbilled the state for Medicaid payments.

The MPA stayed out of the Nutting affair. However, its communications director, Mike Tipping, theorized about the political ramifications on his blog hosted by Downeast.com. He used the same site to further lament the Harring selection.

Tipping, a political scientist and activist, is fast becoming ubiquitous in Maine’s political spheres, having landed the Downeast.com gig and a Sunday column for the Kennebec Journal, all while maintaining the blog that started it all, mainepolitics.net. (Tipping discloses his involvement with the MPA and indicates which opinions are his.)

Tipping wouldn’t say definitively if the MPA would lead a Democratic insurgency against LePage, only that the administration has plans that threaten nearly all of the organization’s policy initiatives.

“Obviously we’re going to work to make sure the people we represent are heard,” Tipping said. “Hopefully some of those bad policies don’t make it into law.”

The group’s grassroots pedigree and nonprofit status also make it well-suited to lead Democratic efforts to retake the Legislature majorities it lost on Election Day.

In the past, the group has excelled at door-to-door canvassing and voter engagement. It boasts registering 12,339 new voters in 2004; similar efforts will be needed to offset the Republican grassroots push that GOP leaders say helped them claim the Blaine House and the Legislature this year.

Additionally, the MPA is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, a classification that allows the MPA to create political action committees and raise campaign funds.

This year the alliance did exactly that, supporting Democratic candidates in several state Senate races and the governor’s race. Tipping said most of that money was canvassing and in-house printing.

The $29,792 the MPA spent the entire campaign was dwarfed by outside GOP groups, particularly the Karl Rove PAC that dumped $40,000 into several Senate races in a single expenditure.

But that spending differential could change in two years if the Democratic umbrella groups that fund the MPA get hip to loosened campaign finance disclosure created by the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision.

The Rove PAC that blindsided Democratic legislative candidates this year was funded by Rove’s Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, a (c)(4) organization.

Although (c)(4) groups aren’t supposed to devote more than 50 percent of their activity to political causes, enforcement falls into a murky area. Additionally, nonprofits are not required to disclose the identity of their donors, a benefit reinforced by “Citizens United.”

After suffering devastating losses on Election Day, Democrats lamented the impact of (c)(4)s, “Citizens United” and the influence of corporate donors. Locally, the discontent has been directed at the Maine Heritage Policy Center, Bragdon’s  501 (c)(3) nonprofit that’s linked to a national network reportedly funded by large corporations and criticized for engaging in political activity.

The center has partnered with the Maine chapter of Americans for Prosperity, a (c)(4) grassroots group that conducted “activist training” seminars and is headed by Tarren Bragdon’s brother, Trevor Bragdon.

One of the MPA’s donors is Maine Initiatives, a 501(c)(3) organization. According to its website, one of the group’s top donors is Donald Sussman, a wealthy hedge fund manager and the fiance of U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine.

Sussman is already politically active, and this year his PAC spent significant  money to influence various state races. 

It remains to be seen if the MPA, or some other group, will receive private funding from someone like Sussman to expand its political activity in the next election, but the group, 32,000 members strong, certainly has the infrastructure and ground game to do so.

Said Tipping, “I think we’ll definitely work to be out front on our issues and the things we care about.”

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