A version of this story first appeared in the Morning Update newsletter. Sign up here to receive the Morning Update and other BDN newsletters directly in your inbox.
Happy Wednesday!
We have at least a couple days to dry out after that nor’easter before the next round of rain moves into Maine. It’s going to be a cloudy day, with highs reaching into the 70s, a small taste of summer as we move deeper into fall.
Last week, heating oil prices rose past $6 a gallon, a record high driven by President Donald Trump’s war against Iran and the more than 4-year-old Russian invasion of Ukraine. It will cost Mainers nearly $750 more to fill a 275-gallon tank than last year.
That’s raising concerns among lower-income homeowners in a state heavily reliant on heating oil to stay warm during the winter. Mainers already have empty fuel tanks, according to the community action program serving Aroostook, Hancock and Washington counties. But the Trump administration has rebuffed calls to release federal heating assistance early.
With just weeks until Election Day, heating oil costs are becoming a factor in the race for governor. Republican Bobby Charles proposed tapping the state’s “rainy day fund,” as well as immediately suspending the gas tax.
His proposal was met with criticism from Democrat Hannah Pingree and independent Rick Bennett, both of whom took issue with Charles not mentioning the role of the Iran war in driving up fuel costs, saying a withdrawal from the rainy day fund will only be a temporary reprieve.
Maine’s deluge of political ads is crowding out small businesses
Emily Cain, a Democratic strategist, told the Bangor Daily News about a scene that you’ll likely find familiar. While watching a football game, she saw back-to-back ads for Maine’s U.S. Senate, gubernatorial and 2nd Congressional District races. Maybe there were other ads, but if you’ve been watching TV or any ad-supported online video platform recently, you wouldn’t bet on it.
Cain chalked it up to the nature of the political game.
“In today’s short attention span world, if you’re not showing up everywhere, you’re missing an opportunity to communicate with people,” she said.
If that’s true, it doesn’t only apply to politics. Small Maine businesses that advertise year-round are now competing for limited airtime, not only with the candidates who are guaranteed the lowest rate by federal law, but with outside groups that seem to have unlimited money for brute force electioneering.
BDN politics reporter Benjamin Kail talked to the owners of Holy Cannoli in Waterville about the challenge of telling the world about your bakery during a heated election season.
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From the Opinion Page
“A legacy is not simply a name attached to a building, center or scholarship. It is the record of what a person has done with a lifetime.”
Opinion: Why I voted against removing George Mitchell’s name from building, scholarship