Pocketful of Kryptonite for Maine GOP

Nobody’s wrong about everything. Even, it seems, Mark Finks. Unfortunately for the Republican Party, the one time Finks may have gotten it right could end up costing the GOP any chance it has of winning the governor’s race.

Finks is a 47-year-old fundamentalist minister from Falmouth, who’s been kicking around the far-right fringes of the Republican Party for the last 20 years, occasionally inflicting some minor damage on GOP moderates. Finks and his pal Paul Volle had their moment of glory in the late 1980s when they engineered a conservative take-over of the Cumberland County Republican Committee. They planned to launch a coup to gain control of the state GOP, but were stymied by their ineptness, Volle’s shoplifting conviction and a collection of supporters so small that only scientists using the latest advances in micro-technology could even detect them.

It’s probably no coincidence that Finks’ ancestors showed up in Salem, Mass., in 1627 while choice seats were still available for witch hangings. Through defeat after humiliating defeat, Finks has remained true to a brand of Republicanism that arrived in America in the bilge water of the Mayflower. It’s a Puritan vision of government run by strict rules based on an unwavering morality. “We need to remember that it was the Judeo-Christian tradition that gave rise to this country,” he told the (Falmouth) Forecaster in 1992, “and the system with the good track record is the Judeo-Christian system.”

Finks’ own track record has been somewhat less impressive. He has labored tirelessly for a string of conservative causes and candidates without ever finding himself in danger of exceeding his storage capacity for success. His fondness for longwinded explanations based on extensive quotations from the Bible and the Constitution annoys those it doesn’t exhaust. He spoke so frequently on matters of such minute detail at the 1982 Republican state conventions that then-state Senate President Joseph Sewall, who was chairing the event, began to abbreviate his name.

“The chair recognizes Mr. Fink,” said Sewall.

“That’s Finks,” corrected Mark.”

“The chair,” replied Sewall, emphasizing each word, “recognizes Mr. Fink.”

Among moderate Republicans, that opinion of Finks is likely to be enhanced by his latest escapade. Last week, he filed a lawsuit in Cumberland County Superior Court demanding that GOP gubernatorial nominee Susan Collins’ name be removed from the ballot because Collins does not meet the Maine Constitution’s residency requirement for candidates. Collins was a Massachusetts resident from January through September of 1993, while she served as deputy state treasurer. The constitution reads, “The Governor shall, at the commencement of the Governor’s term … have been 5 years a resident of the state…”

Historical research has shown the five-year provision was inserted in the document in 1820 to prevent creeps from Massachusetts from seizing control of the new state’s government. The intent was plainly to force power-hungry out-of-staters to endure five Maine winters before becoming eligible to lead. Collins, who has lived in Maine all her life except for the nine-month lapse, argues the provision refers to any five-year period, and not necessarily the time immediately preceding the announcement of candidacy. That’s reasonable, but it’s not what the constitution says, and it’s not what the folks who wrote it seem to have intended. It will take an unseemly legalistic sleight of hand to transform Collins’ time in the Bay State frog pond into something suitable for a Maine princess.

“The lawsuit is not going to make me any friends in the Republican Party,” Finks says, “But, gosh, do I have any friends there anyway?”

Although Finks admits to being “rather disgusted” with the choices for governor, he insists his attack has nothing to do with his backing of one of Collins’ rivals, Paul Young, in the primary. He claims not to be influenced by Collins’ support of abortion and gay rights, but to be motivated by matters of principle. “The constitution really needs to be honored and obeyed,” he says. “It’s the fundamental contract between government and people. I didn’t create the situation. It came and found me. If I’d known about (the residency issue) before the primary, I would have made a big issue of it then.”

Finks hopes the lawsuit will force Republicans to hold a new primary to choose another gubernatorial nominee, preferably one with more to offer the religious right. Then he plans to devote his efforts to suing the Cumberland County GOP for allowing moderates to reclaim control and for being “exclusionary toward conservatives.” The one thing he won’t be doing is quitting the GOP.

“I regard the party as holding essentially conservative views,” he says. “I think it’s the moderates who have moved away from that. It’s always the Republican liberals who are prostituting the name of the party for the sake of political opportunity.”

Nobody’s wrong all the time, although Mark Finks is proving a severe test for that theory, not to mention the Republican Party.

Al Diamon is a television commentator, free-lance writer and weekly NEWS columnist.