Governorship Race – Lesson Three

We all need “summer feet.” Did you ever run as a kid, like my sisters, brother, and me, barefoot? Those were the days, weren’t they? You came off a winter of Bean boots, freed your toes again – but  needed to toughen up, needed your “summer feet.” Same with politics, it seems.

Now in my seventh week as a candidate for Maine’s Governor, I hear the random rumors, all the hopeful things potential plan to sling and spit, have to chuckle. Just bring it. I am apparently not conservative enough, then too conservative, not local enough, then a poor wood splitter, dead in the water because I like Trump, hate bureaucracy, then somehow a silent fan.

The analogy that pops is from Boyhood, mine explored in “Eagles and Evergreens,” an ode to a different time, the woods, and WWII vets. It is all stories, makes you think, makes you grateful.

The analogy from recent weeks is to “summer feet,” how we toughened ourselves, ran here and there, walked among the corn stalks, pick beans, tomatoes, and squash for Mom, climbed the (only) peach tree, walked a path to the lake, jumped rock to rock, went downtown – barefoot.

Why? Because we thought it was real, ancient Abenaki, taking a canoe up the chain of lakes, one with the earth, when we got our “summer feet.” We were tougher, wanted to do it, dirty feet to leather.

But “summer feet” do not come easily, as you recall. Almost there, walking dirt roads, pebbly and pockmarked, dancing on hot asphalt, jumping rocks, and – wham! A sharp one to the heel, real.

That is like being a candidate, twenty friends and a pebble, thirty and a hit, knowing what you believe, believing others believe it – then egos and agitation, jousting. It all makes you tougher.

Back to basics. A conservative? Yes, you better believe it. Believer in my loving God, His guidance and mercy all my life, because I needed it, did then and do now, read the Bible from front to back.

No, I could not recite the Bill of Rights growing up, and I was a mouthy kid, often humbled, but always in church on Sundays, loved the love I got, and was a good shot. NRA safe hunter at 12, p-sight on a .22, better on a 20 gauge than 12.

Here we are with politics 2026, fighting for Maine – my state in desperation, needing leadership, not lies or money or pomp, not more bull, just real. So let me set the record straight, summer feet are here.

No contender to lead Maine is – on the record, on their writings, on their life lived to date – more conservative than this one. I have no apologies as a conservative who said yes over and over again to service, duty, faith, and compassion, not one who worshiped money or made excuses, just fought.

A conservative listens, of course, as Churchill warned, as Burke, Kirk, and Reagan told us, but not bending to things that make no sense, unworthy of trying to undermine, not binding but tearing.

That is not a conservative. A conservative is true, like the board you use to build a house, one that will stand the test of weight and weather, one that does not bend now, not to politics, not ever.

As for me, yes, I served when called, did with all my heart, did in uniform, did in White Houses, did when called, did as a kid who started young being true, was taught that by those who won WWII.

As for chopping wood, part of my rollout video, it does not get more real. Ages 12 to 18, my home had no electric heat, just three wood stoves, two in the living room, one in the kitchen. We lived the dream. My job was felling trees, two-foot lengths, piled in four cords each fall, then split.

I used an axe, sledge, and maul, and when it came time to feed the stoves, I split that wood and fed them all. Nothing special, nothing thousands did not also do, but that was me, as you were you. Does that qualify me to be a governor? Probably not. But it is part of who I am, not who I’m not.

This candidate process is amusing, challenging some days, especially when old friends part ways, which is their right. In this process, filled with artificial heat, I think I am getting my “summer feet.”

Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).