Word: longleys
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MAINE'S JAMES LONGLEY. Just after he was inaugurated, Longley, 50, locked every door leading to his office except one. He then sawed off the top half of that one and locked the bottom half, expecting that visitors would look inside but not enter. Elected as a political independent who would bring efficiency to an increasingly destitute state, Longley launched his closed-door policy to make the point that lobbyists with big-spending notions were no longer welcome. He has sharply trimmed the budget requests of every government department and asked the legislature to consolidate several top administration jobs...
Dozens of reporters invaded his modest ranch house in Auburn. Telegrams from Senators, Representatives and ordinary citizens came in by the hundreds. One man from Keokuk, Iowa, called to say that Longley had given him new inspiration to run as an independent next time round. Longley, who called his one-candidate party "Longley for Maine," had engineered the surprise of the entire election, seeming in the process to carry to the ultimate the trend toward rejection of the party professional...
...streetcar conductor in Lewiston, Longley is the model of the self-made man, the kind of person who jogs a mile every morning, needs only three hours of sleep a night, and avows that Ayn Rand is his favorite author. A fervent believer in the virtues of hard work, Longley as a youth labored in a textile mill to support his widowed mother and five sisters and brothers. After graduating from Bowdoin College, he went on to build one of the biggest insurance agencies in the state...
Urged into politics by two friends, Common Cause Chairman John Gardner and the late Canadian Prime Minister Lester Pearson, Longley became disillusioned by the ineffectiveness of both major parties. Running independently, he conducted his campaign with the same hard-driving efficiency that marked his business success. Dozens of college-age volunteers, many recruited by his two daughters, Sue, 18, and Kathy, 21, gave the campaign a populist image, while substantial financial support came from associates in the insurance business. Most important, his almost messianic pitch that efficient business-type management could shave $25 million from Maine's state budget...
...Longley has vowed to solve Maine's chronic economic backwardness by skillful budget paring and attracting new business. But as an independent, he faces unusual difficulties. Maine's state bureaucracy is as entrenched as any in the country. Longley, who on election night allowed, "I'm still a Democrat," may indeed have to shed his independent elective mantle to win legislative votes for his program. Still, the Governor-elect remains confident. He has already vowed not to seek reelection, in the perhaps naive hope that this will improve his chances for accomplishment, and he feels that...