I’ve always sensed uncommon grit beneath what sometimes seems like the pixieish persona of Maine Gov. Janet Mills. And that was before I learned she has a backbone of steel. Like, literally.

Mills suffered so badly from scoliosis as a child she underwent surgery to insert rods into her spine at the age of 15. Then she had to remain immobilized in a body cast for nearly nine months, confined to a hospital bed in her family living room.

As someone who’s shared a roof with a teenage daughter, I don’t think I can imagine what a grueling experience that must have been for Mills. But as a comic book geek from way back, I happen to know this is the kind of experience which forges superheroes.

Teenager Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive arachnid and became Spiderman. Bruce Banner became the Incredible Hulk due to a failed lab experiment. Jamie Sommers was pieced back together after a skydiving accident and became TV’s “Bionic Woman” back in the ‘70s.

Mills apparently didn’t gain a superpower from her childhood trauma, but as an adult she’s shattered more glass ceilings than a whole slew of Batman movies.  

Even before she became the state’s first female governor, she was Maine’s first female attorney general. And before that she was the first woman in the history of New England to serve as a district attorney (which is kind of amazing), and before THAT she was Maine’s first female criminal prosecutor.

Sometimes you’ll hear people complaining about “labels” when an individual is described as the first so-and-so. They claim it’s an effort to further divide us. “Why do we have to make a big deal about someone being the first of their race/gender/orientation/religion to accomplish something? Why is that a bigger deal than a qualified white guy achieving the same thing?”

The answer should be obvious — it’s a lot harder to achieve something when no one like you has previously done it.

For better or worse, a lot of voters like candidates who have experienced adversity in their lives. If they’ve demonstrated grace, courage, tenacity and inner strength in surviving their particular struggles, we like to think these folks will bring these same qualities to the office they seek. And maybe they’ll actually understand some of the hardships voters have to endure.

Mills has openly discussed an abusive relationship she survived in her younger years. Later, in 1985, she married her tennis instructor, a widower named Stanley Kuklinski who had five daughters. She had to learn how to be an instant mom while also performing the duties of a district attorney and, later, a state legislator. Her husband died after 29 years of marriage, following a stroke.

“I realized that what we were growing through — high deductibles and co-pays and the cost of pharmaceutical drugs — was no different than what thousands of Maine families go through every year, every day, across our state,” Mills said during her first campaign for governor. “It’s those people I think about every day when I get up and go to the office to help the citizens of Maine.”

Her stepdaughters, all grown, now appear in her campaign ads.

My wife cares absolutely nothing about politics, and even less about politicians. But when Mills was gracious enough to take part in Kittery’s annual Independence Day celebration a few weeks ago, even the missus was pleasantly surprised to find our governor down-to-earth and unpretentious.

“She actually seems like a decent person,” she said, which is high praise coming from my wife.

I know this all probably comes across as a puff piece, but when the campaign for the State House heats up in the months ahead, a lot of what Joe Biden calls “malarkey” is going to get thrown around. Wingnuts from out of state — and a few inside as well, I’m sure — will desperately try to portray Mills as some kind of elitist out-of-touch radical milquetoast. I know this because they run the same playbook every damn time.

Good luck with that when it comes to Mills. She’s a former freaking DA from Farmington. She’s tried murder cases, she’s prosecuted drug dealers. She’s taken on Wall Street and won, she’s challenged billion-dollar pharmaceutical companies and won.

Like the rest of the nation, Maine is, hopefully, approaching the end of one of the darkest and most turbulent chapters in our history. Despite having the oldest population in the country, the state has suffered less than 2,500 deaths related to COVID during the entire two-and-a-half years of the pandemic.

That alone should tell you something. I mean, Florida just lost almost 1,000 residents to the coronavirus in the past two weeks! But Maine also has one of the highest vaccination rates in the country.

We want leaders who aren’t afraid to make the tough call in times of crisis, and that’s what Mills has done throughout the pandemic. Now her predecessor, a bigmouthed buffoon in a Florida tan, has returned to Maine to try to take back his old job. (You know how Batman’s nemesis The Joker never seems to go away for good? He’s kind of like that.)

Mills displayed a spine of steel figuratively as well as physically during her first term. Now Mainers need to decide who they want back in that office over the next four years.

You want a hero or a joker?

D. Allan Kerr is an author, ex-dockworker, former newspaperman and U.S. Navy veteran living in Kittery, Maine.