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November 17, 2010

An Easy Budget Win

This year, Maine had five candidates running for governor. This is what they spent during the campaign:

Paul LePage: $950,348.63
Eliot Cutler: $1,582,484.97
Libby Mitchell: $1,724,670.70
Shawn Moody: $534,358.09
Kevin Scott: $24,012.74

Here is what each candidate took in Maine Clean Elections Act payments, funds provided by the taxpayers:

Paul LePage: $0
Eliot Cutler: $0
Libby Mitchell: $1,796,246.70
Shawn Moody: $0
Kevin Scott: $0

Libby Mitchell received 19%, or 108,137 votes - that comes to about $16 per vote. The money she spent in her campaign was entirely taken out of the paychecks of Maine voters. So before I continue, allow me to say...you're welcome.

In the 2008 campaign, legislative candidates spent $2,953,332 in taxpayer funds in their campaigns. This may be a relatively small part of the state budget, but it's an infuriating one. Considering how nasty a campaign the Maine Democrats ran against both Paul LePage and Eliot Cutler this year, their use of so-called "clean election funds" was a joke.

It's time to take those funds away from candidates and put them to use in other parts of the Maine budget.

Posted by slublog at 08:04 PM | Comments (153) | TrackBack

November 10, 2010

The Answer to Your Question, PPH, is Yes.

Winning an election is enough. That's how it works. He or she who gets the most votes, wins.

The election of Paul LePage with 38 percent of the vote means Maine's next governor won't take office with the support of the majority of voters -- a situation that has occurred in six of the last seven gubernatorial elections.

In the last 28 years, only Angus King captured a majority, in 1998.

Some people, including Eliot Cutler, an independent who finished second last week in the five-way gubernatorial race, say it's time to reform the system so Maine's next governor can better represent the consensus of voters.

Cutler said the state should consider runoff elections, to be held if no candidate wins a majority in the general election. Two states, Georgia and Louisiana, hold runoff elections for governor. And last week, California voters approved runoff elections for governor starting in 2014.

It's pretty rich to see a third-party candidate whining about the lack of a majority, since he contributed to the election that created it. If Cutler felt so strongly about this principle, he should have run in a primary to guarantee that one candidate had a chance to gain a majority, instead of launching his third-party bid.

Seriously, Cutler. First encouraging people to change their votes and now this?

Elections are what they are. You go in and make your choice - no do-overs, no second chances, no ranking by preference. One vote, one candidate. The person who ends up with the greatest number of votes is elected to the office he or she is seeking. Did I like it when Baldacci was elected governor with less than a majority of votes? No. Did I insist that the rules be changed so that my side had a greater chance of winning next time? Also, no.

John Baldacci won a plurality of the votes in his two elections and was the legitimate governor of the state of Maine. He persuaded the greatest number of people to cast their ballots for him in a crowded field of candidates, and that was enough. It should continue to be enough.

Awhile back, there was a candidate who won his election with only 39% of the vote. Are those in the sore loser brigade willing to call his victory illegitimate?

Posted by slublog at 09:03 AM | Comments (38) | TrackBack

November 09, 2010

Speaker Bachmann?

Michele Bachmann is an outspoken, compelling political figure. But this? I vote...no.

A grassroots petition drive, parked at LetHerSpeak.com, is underway to encourage Bachmann, a Republican who earlier this summer formed the Tea Party Caucus, to challenge Ohio Rep. John Boehner for Speaker.

“We were thrilled that Nancy Pelosi was fired for not listening to the American people, but now we need real change,” said Tim Pierce, an organizer of the effort, who responded to e-mail inquiries from The Daily Caller. “John Boehner is another member of the Washington establishment that cares more about his corporate backers than the American people. The Tea Party must be given a voice and the founder of the Tea Party Caucus, Michele Bachmann, is that voice.”

A lot can be said about John Boehner, but any attempt to portray him as an ivy-league graduate, champagne-sipping elitist is both silly and ignorant. Boehner's background should be enough to contradict that portrayal, and Bachmann's supporters do her and the GOP no favors by portraying the future speaker of the house in such a negative light.

Posted by slublog at 11:47 PM | Comments (94) | TrackBack

Red State...Maine?

Well, not entirely. Incumbent Democrats Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud both won their races. A disappointment, sure, but then I look at this map again:

That image is from the Bangor Daily News website, which has posted the full results from Tuesday's election. Scrolling down, one gets an idea of the extent of the carnage inflicted upon the Maine Democrats last Tuesday. Before the election, there were 20 Democrats and 15 Republicans in the Maine Senate. When the Senate reconvenes in January, there will be 20 Republicans, 14 Democrats and one independent. In the House, the pre-election spread was 95 Democrats, 55 Republicans and 1 independent. Post-election, it's 77 Republicans, 73 Democrats and 1 independent. This is the first time the GOP has controlled all three branches of government since 1966.

Before the election, Republican Paul LePage was heavily favored to win the Blaine House in various polls but early in the night, it wasn't looking good for him. The first results of the night were from the biggest cities in southern Maine and they showed a troubling trend - the Democrats were throwing their candidate under the bus and voting for independent Eliot Cutler.

At one point, Cutler had 49% of the counted vote. On various social media sites, the Cutler supporters and the Democrats were ecstatic and celebrating what looked like a sure upset by the independent.

Then...gloriously...the rural vote started to come in.

Cutler continued to gain votes, but LePage started racking them up faster. In some rural communities, he was getting twice as many votes as his opponents. In the early morning hours, he took a small lead and from that point on, he never looked back. By the next morning, he was up 7,500 votes and by noon the next day, was up just over 10,000. Democrat Libby Mitchell had conceded the night before and once Cutler realized rural Maine was voting against him, saw the writing on the wall and did the same, in a gracious, and emotional, speech.

A quick aside: if the election had been held one week later, Eliot Cutler would now be Maine's governor-elect, which speaks volumes about the weakness of the Democrat candidate in the race.

This is a pretty stunning turn of events. The Democrat candidate for governor failed to gain a plurality in any of the state's 16 counties, and her party lost control of both chambers of the legislature in one night. Thanks to how Maine's Constitution is written, the GOP-controlled legislature now gets to elect the Secretary of State, Attorney General, State Treasurer, and State Auditor.

Governing this state will not be easy. We're in a pretty deep fiscal hole, and the state was recently listed last on Forbes' list of best states for business. I believe, though, that the state's new leadership is up to the task of bringing business back to Maine. I look forward to the next four years.

In the end, I offer a simple but sincere congratulations to Governor-elect LePage, who was once a homeless 11-year-old living on the streets of Lewiston and is now the chief executive of the state.

An amazing, and uniquely American, story.

Posted by slublog at 11:45 PM | Comments (93) | TrackBack