Maine Governor Gets Testy With N.A.A.C.P.

Gov. Paul LePage of Maine directed a graphic insult at the state’s N.A.A.C.P. leaders on Friday after they questioned his decision to pass on attending Martin Luther King Birthday events in Bangor and Portland. 

Mr. LePage made the remark after The Portland Press Herald reported on Friday that the organization felt slighted by the governor, a Republican who was elected in November.

Leaders of the group’s Maine chapters told the newspaper that Mr. LePage had declined several invitations from them in recent months, and they questioned whether he would look out for their interests.

Asked to respond, Mr. LePage, who had a reputation for combativeness on the campaign trail, said he had scheduling conflicts on Monday, when the federal holiday in honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is to be observed. He also said the N.A.A.C.P. officials should “look at my family picture,” pointing out that he has an adopted son who is black.

“My son happens to be black, so they can do whatever they’d like about it,” he told a reporter for WGME-TV. “The fact of the matter is there’s only so many hours in a day, so many hours in a week, and so much that you can do.”

When the reporter asked Mr. LePage to respond to the suggestion that he had a pattern of slighting the N.A.A.C.P., he replied, “Tell them to kiss my butt,” adding, “If they want to play the race card, come to dinner; my son will talk to them.”

Mr. LePage’s spokesman, Dan Demeritt, later released a statement reiterating that the governor’s decision about the events was not about race. “This is about a special interest group taking issue with the governor for not making time for them,” the statement said, “and the governor dismissing their complaints in the direct manner people have come to expect from Paul LePage.”

Mr. Demeritt also released the text of a prerecorded radio address, scheduled to air on Saturday, in which Mr. LePage praises Dr. King as someone who “spent and ultimately gave his life making sure that people got a fair shake regardless of race.”

During the campaign, Mr. LePage made news when he told a group of fishermen that if elected he would tell President Obama “to go to hell.”