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Q: Both of you saw some wins and losses in the recent election. What is the upside of the election results, from your perspective?
Scott K Fish:
When I first suggested this column topic, Editor in Chief Tori Britton replied by email, “How about if you both talk about what specific GOOD you think is going to come about as a result of the election results? Things Mainers in our part of the state should feel encouraged about.” If Tori will accept “opportunity” as a substitute for “good,” the November 2008 election results present many opportunities for Maine. In my October ‘08 Bangor Metro column I wrote of my uneasiness with candidate choices offered last November. “My focus,” I wrote, “is on what to do after Election Day.” And here we are.
The next two years are an opportunity...
• To see how we like living under Democrat rule. Democrats have the majority in the U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, and the incoming U.S. president is a Democrat. In Maine, Democrats have the majority in the Maine Senate and House. Governor Baldacci is a Democrat. The next two years will be an opportunity for Democrats in Maine to stop blaming Republicans for...anything.
• For the Maine Republican Party to take stock of itself. Focus on 2010. If it is the party of individual freedom and less government—prove it. Show it. There are solutions to Maine’s challenges on the table from Republican lawmakers past and present, from private groups, i.e., the Maine Heritage Policy Center, and from individuals. Use them. Get out of the Statehouse and into Maine’s towns and cities. Promote Republican ideas. Nonstop.
• For apathetic citizens—Apathists!—to snap out of it.
Especially taxpaying Apathists. There’s a credible theory that Democrats win Maine elections because Maine has more wagon-riders than wagon-pullers. That situation gets worse, not better, with every wagon-puller content to keep pulling in silence. Maine needs more wagon-pullers crying, “Whoa!” and getting in the fight.
• For Maine’s U.S. Senators Snowe and Collins, as likely U.S. Senate deal breakers, to think first of what the federal government can do to stay out of our lives, pockets, and off our backs. Every dollar the feds spend is first taken, not requested, from an American worker/producer. The next two years are an opportunity for Senators Collins/Snowe to insist Congress live by the same laws we do, to hold members of Congress responsible for their actions that harm Americans.
• For citizens to run for political office at the local, state, federal levels. Who will challenge Congressman Mike Michaud in 2010? That same year every seat in the Maine Legislature is up for grabs. This is an opportunity for good people to get elected as selectmen, school committee members, town council members. Now’s the time to get started. Or now’s the time to help someone else get started towards winning those elections.
In sum, Election Day 2010 is our next chance to start over. The next two years are our opportunity to make sure we get it right.
Scott K Fish is owner/editor of the political web forum www.asmainegoes.com.
Sean Faircloth:
Piscataquis County has fantastic people. It’s also Maine’s most Republican county, which tells much about where Maine and the nation are headed. Piscataquis County has the smallest population of any Maine county. Piscataquis gave Obama a decent 47%, going pink, if you will, for McCain. And the rest of Maine with the overwhelming bulk of population? Solid blue.
Maine moved increasingly Democratic, as did the nation, since the 2000 election. But the trend is more significant in Maine, which hasn’t voted Republican for president since 1988. Gore won the popular vote in 2000 by a sliver nationally, but solidly in Maine.
It’s the strength of the Democratic margin in 2008 that’s new. Obama won 53% nationally. Maine went 57% for Obama. The Maine results are remarkable.
Differences remain between Maine’s 1st and 2nd Districts. In Maine’s two most populous counties, Obama won a landslide: 64% in Cumberland, 59% in York. Maine’s 1st District is solid D.
But in the 2nd District? Hancock County, Franklin County, Oxford County, and Androscoggin County each gave Obama a landslide—over 55%—an important shift.
Obama reflects views of the solid majority of Mainers. That’s the mathematical reality. Nationally we know Obama did better than Gore and Nader combined in 2000.
But check out Maine. While the Democratic trend grew nationally, Hancock County went from a combined Gore-Nader total of 54% in 2000 to a whopping 59% Obama landslide, particularly noteworthy because coastal Maine is growing in population. Even Penobscot County, with more conservative rural areas, went from 50% combined Gore-Nader to 52% Obama.
Yes, Obama may stumble. Anything could happen, but we MAY be seeing a generational Democratic era, that is even more Democratically dominant in Maine.
What Canadians and Europeans view as wise public policy and what is perceived as the American view widened under Bush. Gore won the popular vote in 2000. The combined Gore-Nader vote was easily dominated. Americans were never dominantly right wing. After Bush, we’re likely to find much more common ground with other industrialized capitalist democracies than under Bush. Maybe we’ll even see investment in early childhood, more investment in roads and infrastructure, more significant investment in jobs in northern and eastern Maine. In short, more investment in our own people.
McCain sent Sarah Palin here for an airport rally. She didn’t resonate with most Mainers, even in eastern and northern Maine. Mainers are more interested in progressive policies than the nation as a whole. We may, and I say may, be on the verge of a significant progressive era in Maine.
The 1st District is landslide Democratic. Up here in the Bangor metro area, we’re now solidly Democratic. I hope we see investment in economic development for places like Washington and Piscataquis Counties, and the Bangor metro region. America has been less healthy, less strong, in recent years. Democrats are ready to make Maine and America stronger. Despite all the many problems, the future may be brighter for Maine, including for Piscataquis County.
Sean Faircloth, a lawyer, graduated from the University of Notre Dame, cum laude, and from the University of California Hastings College of the Law. Faircloth spearheaded the Deadbeat Dad child support law that has saved Maine taxpayers over $180 million.
