Two Cents and a Thousand Words

If you want to see what’s wrong with Maine, look no further than the gubernatorial race this year.

Maine’s a state that doesn’t know what it wants. We know we’re not in a good place right now, but we don’t know how to move forward. Many of our key industries (forest products, shoes, and more) have moved in large part overseas or to more business-friendly locales in North America. On top of that, we’re an aging state, and many of the people my age leave the state in order to find better jobs in places where the kind of jobs we want are more available.

Now look at this year’s gubernatorial race. The three serious contenders for the office have either worked in politics for decades or, in the case of LePage, help run a business that screams “old Maine.” Compared with the 2008 national election during which two charismatic forty-somethings – relative newcomers in politics – took center stage, the policies raised in Maine’s gubernatorial race make it seem like we’re stuck in the past.

Vision for the future, however, isn’t dependent on youth. Unfortunately, this year’s candidates seem to believe that we can find success by tweaking the Maine of yesteryear. We can shrink government. We can consolidate and reorganize schools. Those proposals don’t encourage students to stay in Maine after they’ve graduated. They don’t encourage businesses to be innovative and try new ways of making money. They’re just a way to console voters by saying, “We know it’s rough. But we’ll change some things, and it’ll be better.”

Our next governor needs to look beyond our past to find the solutions to the state’s problems. We need to encourage and invest in new ways of attracting new kinds of business to Maine. We need to support our wonderful tourism industry and allow people to visit our state easily and frequently. We need to support biotechnology, genetics, wind power engineering, call centers, and telecommuting. We have a beautiful state with a great way of life, and we need to use that to our advantage in every way we can.

Above all else we need to encourage young people to stay in the state after they graduate high school and college. We can reform our government and educational system all we want, but Maine can not keep losing its children. If we don’t encourage youth in our state, it will continue to grow harder to foster innovation and the change we need in Maine.

I’m a 27-year-old lifelong Mainer, and I was very disappointed by the choices in this year’s gubernatorial race. If we’re going to move Maine forward, a change in residency in the Blaine House isn’t going to be enough. We all need to do our part to make Maine better.

1. Peter Mills
2. Steve Abbott
3. Rosa Scarcelli
4. Steve Rowe
5. Matt Jacobson
6. Eliot Cutler
7. Pat McGowan
8. Libby Mitchell
9. Shawn Moody
10. Kevin Scott
11. Paul LePage
12. Bill Beardsley
13. Bruce Poliquin
14. Les Otten

I voted for Cutler. What’s your list look like?

For a number of years I’ve had three main pillars that I enjoy: web development, photography, and writing. Between my full-time job and a few projects I do on the side, I definitely keep my development interest going. I cover photography by going on day trips on the weekends; even though I don’t take as many photos as I did a few years ago, I still have the chance to explore and make my mind work in a creative way. Writing, however, is a different story; I haven’t focused on that lately, and I really miss it.

The month of November is National Novel Writing Month, known as NaNoWriMo. People who take part in NaNoWriMo strive to write a 50,000-word novel between November 1 and November 30. A few of my friends on Twitter are trying it out, and I wish them the best of luck. It’s a great challenge; as many writers say, the best way to improve your writing is to practice as much as you can.

I’ve never been much of a novel writer, though. One of my English teachers in high school told me that I did my best when writing concisely; I really struggle whenever I have to write anything over ten pages. I also haven’t written any real fiction since high school.

I might not have the determination to do NaNoWriMo, but I want to focus on writing in November. I’ve decided that I want to make it my goal to write something – anything – of at least 250 words every day in the month. It’s my EvDaWriMo, or every day of writing month. I might write a blog post over on our newly refreshed Sephone blog, a post at Another New World, a post here, or something on a couple of other ideas I have. I might even write some fiction. I’m not sure yet whether I’ll share everything I write, but the important part is that I just want to focus on writing for a bit.

Let’s go write!

Seems to me like we always focus on the minutiae of political races. Who’s taken money from whom? What associations might we not see with the candidates?

In reality a big part of winning a political contest is the drive of a candidate and his or her followers. To win a race, either you or your supporters (and ideally both) have to want it more than the other guys. Part of that equation is the desire to lead and inspire. Another part is a passion to change something about government — or to maintain the status quo. Together, in the right combination, the parts lead to a winning campaign.

A lot of the key players in Maine just aren’t showing this kind of fire so far in the campaign. Mitchell doesn’t seem to be making much headway in the area, and Cutler, while showing some promise, seems more caught up in a race for second place than he does about winning the whole election. The state’s Democrats, for the most part, pretty much have everything they want right now: a liberal governor, massive new programs at the state and national levels, and a pretty solid lock on federal leadership (for now).

Right now (in Maine, at least) the drive is firmly in the corner of Republican voters. They’re tired of how things have been done in the state, and they want their leadership to change. LePage, the leader of their movement, doesn’t seem as passionate as some of the voters he represents, but he’s well aware of those who want to see a different kind of government. For them, he’ll do.

Conservatives hold the fire right now, but it hasn’t always been that way. Obama’s win in 2008 was largely due to the backlash from voters who wanted to move as far away from Bush’s policies as possible. In that race, Obama had the added advantage of being more charismatic and telegenic than his seasoned opponent.

The humor of this year’s Maine gubernatorial race is that LePage may be elected because of the same idea that worked for Obama two years ago. While the substance between the two is much different, the message is the same: the voters with the most passion and desire want change, and they want it now.