March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Wyman founds new coalition > League’s past, present leaders at odds

AUGUSTA — Thoroughly at odds with his past, Jasper Wyman announced Tuesday that he has founded the Coalition for Maine’s Future.

The former executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine has launched his organization as “a voice for conservative values.” Ironically, it is the perception of Wyman’s values that has prompted the league to declare its one-time spokesman persona non grata at the organization’s Sewall Street offices.

“There’s been a request on the part of the board that Jack not come into the building because it’s very disruptive to the staff,” said Michael Heath, the league’s current executive director and a former assistant to Wyman. Representing 4,000 Maine Protestant families, the league has a long history of crusading for conservative causes.

While Wyman, an unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial primary candidate, sought to drum up conservative support for his new coalition, Heath maintained that:

Wyman had taken unfair advantage of his relationship with the league during his gubernatorial campaign.

Wyman had attempted to persuade the league’s board to reinstate him to the position he had resigned before declaring his gubernatorial candidacy.

The locks were changed on the doors of the league’s offices after Wyman left, allegedly having removed books and manuscripts belonging to the league worth several thousand dollars and converting them to his personal use. He is now banned from entering the league’s Augusta headquarters.

Wyman countered that any assistance provided to his campaign by the league was offered willingly. He said Heath’s allegation that he had sought to reclaim his old job was “a lie.”

Wyman acknowledged the locks had been changed in the office and maintained he had returned some of the books claimed by the league. He said he had volunteered not to re-enter the league’s offices.

Wyman said he would not disagree with those who might suspect Heath of engineering a series of hostile maneuvers against him to bolster his new position as the league’s executive director. Asked why Heath would undertake such ventures, Wyman responded, “It’s not for me to say.”

Heath said the emergence of the Coalition for Maine’s Future was tied directly to Wyman’s failure to win back the league’s executive director post he held for 10 years between 1984 and this year. The disassociation began, he said, in 1988 when Wyman ran what proved to be a symbolic campaign for the U.S. Senate against an overpowering George Mitchell.

With some league members convinced that Wyman was simply using the organization as a springboard for his own political pursuits, Heath said his former boss apparently knew better than to ask for a leave of absence for this year’s GOP race.

The league’s board never had to force Wyman out. He resigned in January.

“There was a question about whether it was appropriate and effective for the executive director to be so politically active as an individual in terms of being a candidate, and that debate started in earnest after the Senate campaign and continued throughout (Wyman’s tenure),” Heath said. “There was a sense that if he wanted to do this again and run for office, he would have to go and do it himself and not hang onto the league.”

In choosing Heath as Wyman’s successor, the league seemed to signal a shift away from its decade of high-profile conservatism. Heath looks back at the Wyman years as being totally “personality-driven.” The current executive board, he said, is distinguished by a more democratic organization that includes the views of as many people as was administratively possible.

“I think the league members feel they want to be a plain-spoken voice on the issues that they care about and they’re not real interested in seeing the top guy — or anybody who is closely linked to the league — as a guy who is running for major office,” he said.

“They’re less interested in that than they are in getting their issues, values and priorities before the public.”

As Wyman cranked up his campaign for governor last winter, a request arrived from his staff asking to use the league’s membership mailing list to announce the candidacy and seek assistance. Heath said a decision to grant the request was made on a “one-time basis only.”

The league’s board grudgingly allowed Wyman to use the mailing list a second time, Heath said. Although the board had made it clear it did not want the Wyman For Governor campaign to receive any more lists, Heath said he gave in to Wyman’s request for league members in three targeted counties.

Ultimately, Heath said he learned Wyman had obtained membership lists for all but three counties. “I called up his campaign manager and said, `That’s it,”‘ Heath said. “I was in hot water with the board and I had to apologize to them.”

Wyman maintained that in all instances, he had the approval of the board to use the mailing lists. He said it was Heath who objected on the basis that financial contributions from league members to the Wyman campaign could diminish the league’s fund-raising efforts.

Wyman finished third in the eight-way GOP primary with about 14,000 votes and 16 percent of all Republican ballots.

Immediately after his loss, Wyman allegedly sought to re-enter the league in his former post as executive director — a move that would have dislodged Heath.

“A board member floated the proposal that Jack come back and that was shot down,” Heath said. “The executive committee said no and the board remains unanimous in its support (of me).”

“The best way to respond to that is that that is a lie,” said Wyman of accusations that he planned to return to the league.

Wyman contemplated several future employment options after the primary, including a possible college presidency and the leadership of a conservative action group, he said.

On Tuesday, the creation of the Coalition for Maine’s Future seemed to represent the solution to a problem Wyman had long complained about: The absence in Maine of “a voice for thoughtful mainstream conservatism.” Wyman declined to identify the coalition’s members or numbers until he names a board of directors.

“The Coalition for Maine’s Future will undertake nothing less audacious than the forging of a brand-new alliance between thoughtful and responsible cultural conservatives and pro-business, pro-growth fiscal conservatives,” Wyman said in his press release. “For those of us who are proud to be conservatives, there are many challenges in a state that has become, over the years, increasingly liberal.”

“Audacious” would be a generous description of the league’s reaction to Wyman’s removal of several books from the organization’s office. Wyman had left many of his personal effects at the office during the campaign and had made a practice of commingling his personal library books with those belonging to the church association. Heath said Wyman was clearly informed that the league’s books were to remain at the office. He said Wyman scooped up more than 100 of them during one visit, claiming the volumes were his.

Wyman said that he has since returned five boxes of books, but denied taking anything that wasn’t his property. “I saw some books that were given to me as Christmas presents that were still on the shelf that apparently were in dispute,” he said. “Knowing the deteriorated relationship between Mr. Heath and myself, I decided to take the books that I wanted to sort through myself and return those which were not mine to the Christian Civic League, which is what I did.”

Wyman says the contentious events that have transpired with the league since his bid for governor have left him stunned and confused.

“I don’t understand this, either,” Wyman said. “My relationship with the Christian Civic League of Maine for a decade was an outstanding relationship. But I’m not saying that I never made a mistake — that would be ludicrous.”


Have feedback? Want to know more? Send us ideas for follow-up stories.

comments for this post are closed

You may also like