Born into a staunch Republican family, I proudly wore a Landon button in 1936, Willkie buttons in 1940 and 1944, a Dewey button in 1948 and an “Ike” button in 1952. That year, I cast my first presidential vote for Dwight D. Eisenhower. I am an enrolled member of the Republican Party and have voted in every primary and general election for more than 50 years
On Nov. 2, Maine voters will go to the polls to elect a new governor for the next four years. This election is as significant as any that I can recall, because the contrast between the candidates is so stark.
In my view, there are only two significant candidates. They are the Democratic nominee, Elizabeth “Libby” Mitchell, and the Republican nominee, Paul LePage. None of the three independent candidates has a realistic chance of winning the election, although their candidacies could skew the outcome.
I will vote for Libby Mitchell for governor. I will do so because she has demonstrated in a long career of public service that she is able to work with a wide variety of people and that she will be able to govern to accomplish results that will benefit our state.
Mrs. Mitchell has served as both speaker of the Maine House of Representatives and as president of the Maine Senate. That speaks volumes about her capacity to work with other legislators and, more than that, to inspire their confidence in her leadership qualifications. No one attains those positions without demonstrating to others that they are worthy of trust and support.
On the Republican side, I see Paul LePage as an angry and intemperate man who understands little of state government. He has demonstrated that he is ignorant as to the reasons many state policies were established in the first place. If elected, he could damage the state’s governmental structure and economy in a fashion from which the state would reel for decades to come.
For example, 50 years ago, the state was an environmental disaster area. Rivers flowed with industrial waste. Forests were clear-cut without consideration for the consequences. Streams were bulldozed for log driving as if they had no other value. Dams were built that destroyed the runs of anadromous fish that had nurtured Native Americans and early European settlers. Land was subdivided with no perception of the cost of sprawl. Major industrial facilities could be located anywhere with no mechanism to control the impact. Those who favored their own economic benefit over any consideration of the general welfare or the environment ran roughshod over Maine.
Inch by painful inch, year after exhausting year, with toil, sweat and tears, the citizenry and the Legislature have addressed those issues. State agencies were created to come to grips with the problems and were given the tools to do so. The Board of Environmental Protection and the Land Use Regulation Commission were both established to give Maine residents a voice in the management of their environment that had never existed before.
Paul LePage’s campaign oratory shows that he does not understand this history. His comments demonstrate that he would be willing to scrap 50 years’ worth of hard-won environmental gains in the name of perceived job creation that is based on a vision of a world that vanished decades ago and will never return. We do not need to re-create the dark days of the past.
Eliot Cutler presents a different concern. He is intelligent and capable. But he, too, does not understand Maine’s history. In my view, he has a perception of the governor as an autocrat able to impose his own will regardless of what others think. That is simply not the case. An effective governor must be able to understand and address many differing points of view and must have the ability to work with legislators, state agency personnel, the congressional delegation and the public at large in order to have a successful administration.
Maine has many problems. Its large size and small population mean higher unit costs in almost every aspect of governance. For the next four years, the governor of Maine will need to address a host of complex and difficult issues, including education, public health, welfare policy, tax structure, the environment and the need for jobs, just to name a few.
We need a governor with the demonstrated ability and understanding of how to pull people together, not drive them apart. Libby Mitchell fits those criteria. Paul LePage and Eliot Cutler do not. That is why I will cast my vote for her on Nov. 2.
Clinton B. Townsend has practiced law in Skowhegan for more than 50 years. He has served on the board of directors of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, Maine Rivers and the Atlantic Salmon Federation.