Next week, voters in Lewiston will choose between diametrically opposed visions for the future of Maine’s second largest city. Make no mistake, the outcome of the run-off election for mayor has huge implications for all Mainers in the run up to next year’s statewide election, when all 186 seats in the Maine Legislature are up for grabs.
Democratic candidate Ben Chin outpolled incumbent Republican Bob Macdonald on Nov. 3 but fell short of a majority, setting up the run-off on Dec. 8.
To say the campaign has been contentious would be an understatement. In recent weeks, Chin’s apologists have circled the wagons to protect him from his own record of leftist extremism, including a paper trail of sermons that have raised eyebrows.
In his role as a lay minister at Trinity Episcopal Church in Lewiston, Chin has used the pulpit as a campaign platform to attack Christians who don’t share his radical views on social issues. In a sermon he delivered six years ago, Chin’s smug condemnation of “most Christian churches” for allegedly waging campaigns to deny women their rights and “squeeze the life out of the poor” is posted online for anyone who cares to take a few minutes to read it. That sermon is a gratuitous insult and a slap in the face to Christians all over Maine but particularly to pro-life Catholics in Lewiston. More recently, in a sermon three years ago, Chin used his pulpit to hammer Gov. Paul LePage and Republican legislators for our welfare reform package that reigned in the budget-busting expansion of medical welfare under former Gov. John Baldacci.
When he’s not spouting partisan political rhetoric from the pulpit, Chin serves as political director for the Maine People’s Alliance, a left-wing progressive nonprofit that is now the tail that wags the Democratic dog in Maine politics. MPA and its twin sister, Maine People’s Resource Center, have a combined annual budget of $2 million to spend pushing their leftist agenda. More welfare and open borders are top priorities.
That’s why the run-off mayoral election in Lewiston has such profound statewide implications. If Chin prevails on Dec. 8, his Maine People’s Alliance will have a trophy mayor to trot around the state campaigning for far left legislative candidates.
Here’s the good news.
In his run for re-election last year, Gov. Paul LePage got more votes than any governor in Maine history. Thanks to his courageous leadership, Maine voters have connected the dots between decades of one-party, liberal misgovernance by Democrats in Augusta and the wreckage LePage inherited when he took office less than five years ago.
LePage is a man on a mission in his second term. His vision is to leave Maine in better shape than he found it. That’s why he has given his enthusiastic endorsement to a new group that will go toe to toe with the Maine People’s Alliance to restore limited government and free markets in Maine and New England.
The New England Opportunity Project has the vision, the plan and the team to fill the vacuum that exists on the right side of Maine policy and politics. We will challenge the liberal status quo that has wrecked our regional economy, and we will fight fire with fire when leftist radicals such as Chin pose as advocates for the poor and dispossessed. We will unmask and expose these wolves in sheep’s clothing and lead a policy revolution to educate voters about what’s at stake in municipal and legislative elections.
As one of the co-founders of NEOP, newenglandopportunityproject.org, I am pleased to have Republican Sen. Eric Brakey of Auburn on board as a key member of our leadership team. Now serving his first term in the state Senate, Brakey has distinguished himself as a bold and articulate advocate for welfare reform. Last year, he unseated a liberal incumbent who had been a fixture in Maine politics for 40 years. Brakey’s policy expertise, coupled with his political skills on the campaign trail, are the model for reclaiming our state and region from the progressive malaise that continues to drive our children and grandchildren away from home to seek economic opportunity.
Whatever the outcome next week in Lewiston, policy and politics in Maine are about to be revolutionized. Stay tuned.
State Rep. Lawrence Lockman, R-Amherst, is director of development for the Augusta-based New England Opportunity Project. He may be reached at larrylockman@rivah.net.