Eliot Cutler

If Eliot Cutler had won the Blaine House, there might be a populist group calling itself "the 61 percent of Maine that didn't vote for Eliot Cutler." Nevertheless, the Cape Elizabeth millionaire's independent gubernatorial try was a valiant effort to save the state from the extreme right-wing Republicanism of Paul LePage as well as the monotonous drivelry of Democrat Libby Mitchell. But perhaps Cutler's weakest effort was of accountability: He has ascribed the loss not to his own campaigning, but to Maine's longstanding no-excuse absentee and early voting system.