Papers give candidates voice
I want to thank all our local papers for being a source of information during this last election. They are a great resource, and as a candidate they allowed me to explain my positions and introduce myself.
As a Clean Elections candidate, if I had to use my limited funds to advertise, many of my constituents would have never heard my voice. They are truly the voice of democracy and free speech. I want to thank the newspaper staffs for allowing me to return a good portion of my Clean Election funds to our voters by giving me and my opponent a platform from which to speak. Thanks for being fair and being there.
I also want to thank all the people who voted for me. I appreciate their support, and I will do my best to live up to that support. My thanks also go out to the hard-working town officials and volunteers who allow us to exercise the right to vote.
Stanley Paige Zeigler
Montville
Make a plea for forgiveness
After 48 years of teaching from pre-kindergarten to post high school, I have a very personal and passionate interest in young people, our most precious resource. So it is with overwhelming sadness that I read and hear of the many instances of hateful words and actions from these children. Too many of the responses to these stories seem only to compound and inflame. Half of the people blaming the other half of the people is a lose-lose deal.
I see this as a national emergency needing an extraordinary response. I humbly urge people to take a lesson from the Amish at Nickel Mines and the survivors of the Charleston church shooting and forgive. As Bishop Desmond Tutu has said, the process of forgiveness is “astoundingly painful and profoundly beautiful.”
I suggest that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump meet and make a joint plea of forgiveness to mend the tears in our social fabric to stop our human community from unraveling. A plea to the neighbors to reach across the boundaries that divide, to see beyond the politics and share our common dreams. This act could be one of the hardest they have ever done and one of the greatest gifts they could ever give.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that,” Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his 1963 book, “ Strength to Love.” “I have decided to stick to love. … Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
Lin Parker
Penobscot
Electoral College should back Clinton
I am far from alone in being convinced that President-elect Donald Trump is unfit by temperament and unqualified by experience to be the leader of our great country. The Electoral College, which votes Dec. 19, was established in part to protect the country from electing a president who was unqualified or unfit to serve. To do this, electors need to be free to vote for the candidate they believe would be the best president.
Although electors are initially pledged to support the winner of the popular vote in individual states — or districts, such as in Maine — the Supreme Court in 1952 ruled that such a pledge is not binding, due to the assumed freedom of choice for electors expressed in Article 2 in the Constitution. In two of the last five elections the plurality winner of the popular vote was not the projected winner of the electoral college. Ironically, the winners of the popular vote in both cases — Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 — were two of the best-qualified candidates to ever run for president.
Now is the time for members of the Electoral College to take seriously their role in ensuring that our next president is the candidate who will best serve the people of our country. I urge members of the Electoral College to elect one of best-qualified presidential candidates in our history, the candidate with a lifetime of service to our country, the winner of the popular vote, former first lady, senator and secretary of state Clinton.
Susan Conard
Northport