About

Pine Tree Politics was founded in November of 2008 by Matthew Gagnon, a native Mainer who had since moved to Washington DC to pursue a career in national politics.  At the time, the landscape of online coverage of Maine politics was woefully inadequate, particularly from a right of center perspective.  Gagnon founded PTP to fill that void, and offer quality coverage, analysis, reporting and commentary with a distinctly center-right point of view.

The site quickly gained a reputation as a “go to” location to read and interact on issues facing the political culture in Maine.  As the 2010 gubernatorial election began to heat up, PTP’s readership nearly doubled each month.

Pine Tree Politics started to make a name for itself beyond the online space as it began to break original stories, and beat traditional press outlets to hard news.  When Gagnon reported that John Richardson had been denied Clean Election funding by the Maine Ethics Commission, and then later broke news regarding the Les Otten plagiarism scandal, the mainstream media in Maine began to use PTP as a source and its place in the conversation was firmly entrenched.  By this time, it was already the most read Maine political blog in the space (outside the more message board based site, As Maine Goes, which did maintain higher traffic).

While all of this was happening, another site covering Maine politics with a slightly different focus – policy analysis and state government intrigue – was thriving.  Augusta Insider had also made quite a name for itself, and had turned itself into a “must read” for any Maine political junkie.  AI secured a number of quality writers such as Derek Viger of what was then “The Maine View”, which added to its quality coverage.

In June of 2010, shortly after the primary election, Augusta Insider and Pine Tree Politics merged together (continuing under the name Pine Tree Politics) and re-branded itself.  It now boasts a robust team of editors and columnists who focus on all aspects of Maine politics and provide unmatched coverage.

Pine Tree Politics is devoted to providing its readers with the best coverage of Maine politics anywhere.

Our purpose is to fairly report the major political news taking place in the state.  But more than that, we strive to provide context, analysis and commentary which effectively tells the story of all the important unknown, behind the scenes or obscure dynamics that play into Maine’s political culture.

We do not just report the news, we tell you why it important, tell you the backstory, and give you our take on what it means.

Pine Tree Politics is – for the most part – a center-right leaning site.  By this we mean that the perspective that our editorial board and most of our columnists come from is in some fashion leaning to the right of the political spectrum.

That said, there are some important caveats to mention.

First of all, each of PTP’s staff members have a slightly different political philosophy.  We have flat out centrists with some right leaning tendencies, libertarians, moderate Republicans and hard right traditional conservatives.  In other words, while the board is decidedly “right”, you will find significant disagreement on a large number of issues among each of us.

More importantly, however, the approach we take to writing our articles – both hard news and commentary – is to attempt to be as objective and fair as possible.  When conducting an analytical review of a political race or issue for example, our writers will put aside their bias and give you an unvarnished opinion.  If our true analysis of a race results in an unflattering evaluation of a candidate or issue that we personally like, so be it.

Additionally, we have tried to cultivate an open editorial culture that invites left leaning guest writers and columnists to supplement and counterbalance our traditional content.  We have a number of left-leaning contributors, and we love the conversations and debate that they spark.

In short, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents should all be able to read Pine Tree Politics without feeling like they are reading an entrenched, tone def ideological echo chamber.

It is impossible to be as deeply entrenched and involved in the political process in Maine as we are without actually engaging in the machinery of politics.

We do not view political activism or working for a party or candidate as a detriment to our coverage.  Quite the opposite – the diversity of experience gives us perspective and an inner knowledge of what is really going on around the state.

Instead of “staying neutral”, we believe in transparency and full disclosure.  When we work for a political party, we say so.  When we support a candidate openly, we say so.  When we work on a specific political issue, we will tell you where we stand and what we are doing to promote our beliefs.  In other words, we are up front with you.

As such, you will always be aware of our particular standing in various political circles, and can make a determination about our objectivity on your own.  The one exception to this rule is simple political choice – who or what we have chosen to vote for, but have no involvement in helping formally.  That would be a tad overkill, and will not require disclosure on this site.

In any event, our standard is clear.  We will never – never - use Pine Tree Politics to surreptitiously promote a party, candidate or cause without disclosing it.