Gov.-elect Paul LePage said Thursday that he would support U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, if she decides to run for a fourth term in 2012, an endorsement that could rile the incoming governor’s tea party backers.

LePage told the National Review that he would “absolutely” back Snowe regardless of whether the tea party runs a primary challenger against her, as one of its most prominent members has promised.

The governor-elect cited his personal relationship with Snowe for his loyalty, which he said “would never turn.” Snowe’s deceased first husband, Peter Snowe, was one of the people who helped LePage get off the streets of Lewiston and into college.

Snowe also campaigned for LePage during the election.

Maine’s tea party affiliates have been vehement Snowe critics for a voting record that they believe betrays the Republican party and the libertarian movement’s free-market tenets.

Pete Harring, a tea partier and a member of LePage’s transition advisory team, has a devoted section of his website called “Snowe Removal,” which says Maine is covered “in a disgraceful blanket of Snowe.” 

“This woman is a traitor to the Constitution that she has vowed to uphold and defend, “the section reads.

Harring, also known as Pete the Carpenter, did not respond to a request for comment.

On Thursday, LePage’s comments weren’t discussed on Harring’s Facebook page or the discussion boards of his website.

Andrew Ian Dodge, a coordinator for Maine’s Tea Party Patriots, which is unaffiliated with Harring’s group, has promised to run a tea party challenger against Snowe in 2012. Dodge said he wasn’t surprised that LePage would endorse Snowe, but he anticipated that some of LePage’s ardent tea party backers might be.

“I’ve always been fairly cynical about Paul LePage,” said Dodge, adding that he long believed the incoming governor was more of an establishment candidate than other tea partiers wanted to believe. 

“This might come as a shock to some people (in the movement), people who didn’t pay attention to these little things, like LePage’s relationship with Snowe,” Dodge said. “But it won’t shock anyone who has been paying attention. I mean, Snowe’s husband paid for LePage to go to college!”

Dodge said that some in the movement might have been willfully ignorant of the LePage-Snowe relationship. Dodge, however, said he’d always distrusted LePage’s tea party credentials.

“Now that he’s (been elected), look at some of the people he’s surrounding himself with,” Dodge said. “They’re the establishment.”

Dodge, a freelance science fiction writer, acknowledged differences among the tea party’s various groups, particularly among those who subscribe to its strict libertarian principles and the social conservatives who joined later. He expected the movement would experience “a realignment.”

As for Snowe’s tea party challenger in 2012, Dodge said he knows who it will be, but he wouldn’t identify the person.

In a recent story in Roll Call, Dodge said, “There is someone that’s going to come out. But he’s not going to be forced out by the press. Of course Snowe’s people want to know who it is, so they can take their machine and aim it at him and trash him. … It’s a giant chess game.”

On Thursday, Dodge wouldn’t budge on naming the candidate.

“What fun would it be if I told you?” he said.

Regardless of whether there’s a tea party challenger, LePage’s camp reiterated Thursday that Maine’s next governor is standing by Snowe.

LePage was in Washington, D.C., Thursday to meet with President Barack Obama. Dan Demeritt, LePage’s communications director, responded to a request for comment with a written statement:

“(Gov.-elect) LePage did not go to Washington to talk about politics,” Demeritt wrote. “He was asked a direct question about the 2012 elections and he made it clear that Sen. Olympia Snowe will have his support when the time comes.

“We understand the fascination with politics, but (LePage) is focused now on working with the new Legislature and the congressional delegation to create jobs for the people of Maine.”

smistler@sunjournal.com

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