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Kate Beck, a Maine native, is a painter and educator creating conceptual works driven by personal recollection and universal considerations of human, nature, and wildlife ecologies. For over three decades she has worked with artists, curators and academic and commercial institutions in the United States, northern Europe, and Italy.
With the primary fast approaching, ICE heavy upon our shores, and the threatening of our American freedoms and world peace, I felt something revolutionary happening on a snowy afternoon in the lakes region of rural western Maine. Democratic candidate for governor Nirav Shah had the bright interior of the Standish Congregational Church buzzing.
There was a sense of composure and fun as Dr. Shah was waved inward amidst stamping applause and cheer. A certain lightness. I wasn’t expecting this. He was boisterous, not loud, and his gestures were open and welcoming — someone, it appeared to me, genuinely and without calculation showing up, ready to share with honesty and humility, and a superior capacity to foster laughter.
Dr. Shah cut deep into questions of truth and morality from the curious, concerned, and responsive town hall crowd with optimism and strength. He wanted to hear first from those who had questions, and those, like me, who just weren’t sure. Reflecting personally on issues of human rights, history, and the value of home, he took a stand for the public good amidst the collective angst, fear, and distrust we have all been shouldering.
He has done this before. “I have taken tough questions about COVID, and as a result, I am a better leader,” Shah told The Washington Post in a recent interview. His mastery of science, generosity of spirit, and calm leadership helped to synthesize and communicate complex issues with compassion then, and I believe he is prepared to continue this now as governor.
As a recognized economist, attorney, mentor, and teacher, as well as a medical doctor, Shah’s professional aptitude is refreshingly broad-based. He has spent this last year as a visiting professor at Colby College, helping to launch one of the top undergraduate public health programs in the country.
Shah believes the way for a governor to address the most pressing issues that face the people of Maine — affordability, healthcare, childcare, and acceleration of our workforce, especially for young adults — is to think realistically in terms of critical trade-offs rather than focus on perfunctory solutions that are overwhelmingly unattainable in the current economic and political landscape. Effective change takes time.
So, what does he think? Shah is betting on optimism, not darkness. By “keeping the conversation going” with the people of Maine, I believe he intends to know who we are, what we think, and what we are facing in regard to our communities, our environment, our homes and families, and our jobs and futures throughout all 16 counties of Maine. He transparently supports reform and clarification of ICE through legal action and analysis of the law, and to making affordability a reality on a household level through an affordability agenda. In his words, “Maine needs more of everything,” from healthcare workers, to electricity, to service and materials, to private sector participation. He advocates for health insurance reform and a single-payer healthcare system as forerunner to universal healthcare, beginning with universal pediatric care, and universal primary care.
With calm and substantiated resolve, Nirav Shah said he believes Maine people and communities want firm leadership to restore and support the quality of life we deserve, the natural environs we depend upon and treasure, the human decency we believe is a given right, and a government we can trust by being accepting of the ideals of Maine people and communities with honesty, morality, decency, and integrity.
This was my buzz in Standish as I turned to head out, boots squeaking against the snowpack and sounds of voices dissipating against lake effect snow. Quiet. Hopeful. Grateful to be home in Maine.