The Forecaster

By Edgar Allen Beem (published: October 26, 2006)

No, I’m not going to try to tell you how to vote. I’m just going to tell you how I’m going to vote and why.

Actually, I was two-thirds finished with a column about the power of forgiveness (next week, sinners.) when an e-mail making the cyber-circuit of like-minded progressives appeared on my screen and urged me to vote for John Baldacci, even though he isn’t much of a governor. What the circulators didn’t want to happen was for me to go wild and vote Green, which I have been known to do.

Have no fear, the Guv’s got my vote, dea’.

Why? Because independent gubernatorial candidate Barbara Merrill and Green Independent Party candidate Pat LaMarche are spoilers. A vote for either of them might help the Christian Right slip Chandler “Bush-in-a-Bow Tie” Woodcock into the Blaine House and no sane Maine citizen wants to see that happen. You want to spend the next four years debating creationism, intelligent design and reproductive rights? Join the Maine Jeremiah Project and vote for Chan the Man.

Now that the Christian Civic League of Maine has been so thoroughly discredited that it’s membership has been pretty much reduced to Director Michael Heath’s immediate family, along comes Pastor Bob Emrich and Jeremiah Project to rally Christian fundamentalists to the polls, accusing Gov. Baldacci of being a Catholic in name only. Remember the good old days when we were so naïve that we were afraid JFK would take orders from the Pope if he were elected? Now we kind of wish there was a Pope behind Bush instead of a Rove and a Cheney.

Anyway, we have to vote for John Baldacci because we can’t afford to let Chandler Woodcock anywhere near Augusta.

In order to exercise my idealistic muscle, however, I can vote for Bill Slavick in the U.S. Senate race and Dexter Kamilewicz in the 1st Congressional District race. Why? Because neither Sen. Olympia Snowe nor Rep. Tom Allen stand a chance of being defeated. Slavick and Kamilewicz are peace candidates. They can’t win, but they can’t hurt – as Merrill and LaMarche can. But then, frankly, I don’t understand why anyone would vote for Barbara Merrill, a candidate who rails against divisive partisan bickering by divisive non-partisan bickering.

Naturally, on Question 1, I will be voting early and often against TABOR. Why? Because the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights would take budgetary decisions out of local hands and hand them to a minority of voters, a subversion of the democratic process crafted by anti-government forces on the Far Right. Everyone who has studied the matter understands this. The only group to legitimize the radical TABOR conspiracy is the Portland Regional Chamber, and I imagine they just got snookered because the guy who wrote the referendum was on their policy committee. The Chambers’ tortured reasoning for supporting TABOR, after four pages of telling us what was wrong with it, struck me as saying, “Taxes in Maine are a headache, so let’s shoot ourselves in the head.”

As far as Question 2 goes, I probably won’t make up my mind until I’m in the voting booth. Question 2 would make it harder to get citizen referendums and people’s veto measures on the ballot by enforcing stricter deadlines. But I’m getting sick and tired of crackpot groups monopolizing the public discourse, so I’ll probably end up voting yes on 2.

So, let’s see, that’s Baldacci, Slavick, Kamilewicz, No on 1 and Yes on 2. Oh, yes, I’m also going to vote for Rep. Dick Woodbury in my state House of Representatives race. Your rep may be part of the gridlock problem in Augusta, but Dick is part of the solution.