Brian Duff interviewed for MPBN radio story on Maine Tea Party press conference

Brian Duff, Ph.D., associate professor of political science, was interviewed for a news story on MPBN radio on Oct. 28, 2010 that analyzed the comments of Maine Tea Party founder Peter Harring, who called a press conference to claim that the Tea Party was not endorsing any candidates. 

"'The Tea Party is, I think, this sort of amorphous and hard-to-define movement,' says Duff. 'You see how politicians change their relationship based on their circumstances, so Paul LePage [Republican gubernatorial candidate], when he was trying to get that Republican nomination, he courted the Tea Party, he did it really effectively.' Duff says now that LePage has a chance of being elected governor, he's distancing himself from the Tea Party in an effort to win over more moderate Republican voters. And the Maine Tea Party, he adds, is happy with this arrangement if it means LePage becoming governor, as it would help towards their eventual goal of unseating Maine's senior senator (Republican Olympia Snowe), whose bi-partisan stance on a number of issues makes her anathema to Tea Party activists."

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