In Maine, Bobby Charles’ Sister Endorses Hannah Pingree for Governor

In Maine, Bobby Charles’ Sister Endorses Hannah Pingree for Governor

Today, in a new op-ed in the Portland Press Herald, Republican nominee Bobby Charles’ sister, Anita Charles, endorsed Hannah Pingree for Governor. In the deeply personal piece, Anita said she “cannot support my brother’s campaign for governor” because of his anti-choice positions, his agenda that would hurt public schools, his relationship with convicted criminal Dennis Hastert, and his divisive and polarizing campaign. In the op-ed, Charles says her brother’s campaign does not reflect the values she was taught growing up.

Read excerpts from the op-ed below:

Portland Press Herald: I’m Bobby Charles’ sister. I’m voting for Hannah Pingree. | Opinion 

• My mother taught me and my brother, Bobby Charles, that how we treat other people matters.

• She taught us to be compassionate, not to name-call or judge people by their race, gender, religion, country of origin or who they love. She taught us that differences do not diminish us, and that we have a responsibility to treat others with dignity. Those lessons shaped my entire life, as well as my career.

• They are also the reason I cannot support my brother’s campaign for governor.

• The values my mother raised us with are not the values his campaign represents today. Bobby’s rhetoric and campaign platform contradict those values.

• In my career, I’ve been a lifelong educator and a teacher of teachers-to-be. I have lived in Maine since I was 7, aside from two early-career years away. I have been married for 35 years to a man who grew up here, and we have raised five children in this state. Maine is my home, through and through. The same cannot be said for my brother.

• Bobby and I have never agreed politically. For most of our adult lives, we have managed those differences with civility. But as divisive rhetoric has become central to his campaign, I can no longer remain silent. It shows up in how he talks about our schools, our vulnerable communities and about women’s healthcare.

• I know education the way a heart surgeon knows the heart. Maine’s schools face real challenges, and we should have honest conversations about them. But those conversations require more than pointing to a single standardized test score.

• I do not believe Bobby has set foot in a public school since he was 18. He has not witnessed what Maine educators do every day, yet he speaks with false certainty about what is wrong with our schools. He’s a D.C. lobbyist who spent more than 30 years in Washington. 

• I am also troubled by the way Bobby talks about people who are different from him. Maine communities are stronger because of the people who make them up. We do not all look alike, worship alike, love alike or experience the world in the same way. That diversity is part of what makes Maine strong. Unfortunately, Bobby campaigns against groups that include members of our own extended family.

• But there is one issue I cannot discuss without speaking from the deepest part of my own experience: sexual assault.

• Bobby was a close friend and colleague of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert from 1995 to 1999. He praised Hastert and benefited from their relationship as he built his career in Washington. Hastert later admitted to sexually abusing children and was convicted of illegally paying hush money to conceal that abuse. Bobby has never publicly renounced that association.

• That is difficult for me to understand because my own childhood was marked by sexual violence. Someone who was part of our lives for more than a decade was a pedophile who repeatedly assaulted me. My brother has known what happened to me for 50 years.

• Under the anti-choice positions Bobby holds today, even in cases of rape, I would not have been able to make a decision about my own body should that have become necessary. This isn’t a debate I’m observing from a distance; it’s about my childhood. And it’s about my ongoing health and well-being as a woman.

• I am speaking now because silence would betray the values my mother taught us and the values I have spent my life passing on to others.

• Maine deserves leadership rooted in empathy, dignity, intellectual honesty and respect for every person who calls this state home. That person is not Bobby. That is why I cannot, in good conscience, support my brother’s campaign for governor. I’m casting my vote for Hannah Pingree.

###