Rural Maine gave victory to LePage

[mainer]

From this morning's Portland Press Herald:

"The Maine counties with the highest poverty rates and reliance on benefits programs, including welfare, all went for LePage, who has promised to create jobs and set tighter limits on public assistance."

http://www.pressherald.com/votes/governor/lepage-rides-rural-maine-to-blaine-house_2010-11-04.html

How ironic. The very people who most rely on public assistance voted for the "less government" guy who wants to cut off their public assistance. I'm so disgusted, I hope LePage follows through and ends the free ride that liberal Maine has been giving to the red counties.

[Crystal Clarity]

1. Seriously?

I'm so disgusted, I hope LePage follows through and ends the free ride that liberal Maine has been giving to red counties.

Are you truly that callous to wish LePage social darwinist policies on many DU member's family, friends and neighbors including mine? I'm disgusted by R voters too, but the last thing we all need right now is broad brush blame and finger pointing. Please, lets just not go there.

[mainer]

2. Unless GOPers really understand "small government"

they will keep voting for people like LePage. Sometimes, reality is the only real teacher for them.

[Old and In the Way]

4. Sadly, I have to agree.

Yes, I know there will be a lot of innocent people that voted against LePage and the agenda he represents who are going to suffer. But, obviously, there are way too many people who don't really understand the political implications of the low tax / low service 'business' model that they signed on to. Personally, I'm sick of the gridlock that we as a State/Nation have been saddled with over the past 40 years. I really want the full Republican agenda to get presented to the enabling voters and let them see what kind of Orwellian future they've voted for. Given the SCOTUS gift of unlimited money to the Republican agenda, we can't compete financially with this corporate juggernaut. The only hope is that 50% or so of the middle-class Republican voter gets to experience, first hand, what 'conservative' governance is all about. Then maybe we can begin to build a progressive future for this country.

[Crystal Clarity]

5. It's the OP's regional bashing that I resent

and was referring to in my reply.

I don't know if you've noticed, but this is not the first time by a long shot and it's getting rather sickening. This OP came only mildly short of implying that people from red areas such as you and I deserve LePage because so many people in our area voted for him. It felt like a broad brush attack and is unfair on so many levels.

The OP does not know me and probably not you or many other DUers from red counties because if he/she did, he/she would probably be very surprised at how much WE'VE sacrificed in our own personal lives for the sake of this state and everyone in it.

[mainer]

6. As the OP, I do concede you have a point

I am working through my anger about this election. I am also working through the incredible hooting and hollering by Tea Partiers that they've socked us liberals in the face with this result. The truth is, I am one of those liberal Mainers who is in the top tax bracket, who is willing to be taxed, willing to see many of my tax dollars leave my well-to-do area of Maine and go to the poorer areas of the state. So I feel like the parent who's been footing the bill for a kid who turns around and kicks me in the shins.

I admit that it was wrong of me to want to punish everyone because of this election result. But I hope you can understand, too, the anger that liberal Maine feels about the result. We are wondering why the very parts of the state that benefit most from our tax dollars would tell us they're sick of high taxes and liberals and educated people like Cutler. It baffles us. It makes us feel as if our contributions are not valued and that, because we're liberals, we're considered free-loaders. When, in fact, we're perhaps the most important part of the state's economy.

It's going to take time for me to deal with this. But I hope you can understand why I'm like the parent who's been kicked in the shins, who wants his kid to get a taste of real life for a change.

[Crystal Clarity]

7. Thank you so much for explaining where you are coming from.

Prior to this reply from you, some of your posts felt a bit like condescension. A comment or two on one thread then one on another, but no real context into which I could discern your point. I understand it now and am thankful that you elaborated.

You make some very valid points and though you brought up a few things that I mildly disagree with, they are inconsequential to the overall sum of what you had to say. I'm just glad you took the time to clear it up for me. And I apologize for some of the skewed conclusions I drew prior to this.

This election has been hard on all of us Dems/Libs and I think emotions are raw for many. They certainly are for me anyway- (but I doubt anyone noticed....lol! :sarcasm:)

So anyway, thanks again.
-CC

[northernlights]

9. here's another reason why the wealthy are resented, Mainer

I went out on conservation shore-line cleanup last week. All over the place where people have earned a living clamming for generations, there were new McMansion neighborhoods with signs up "no parking in the street."

Clammers are still welcome to clean up their shoreline and pick clams. But direct access is cut off. Now it's by boat only, or your car may be towed.

We put a sign on the car and went down to clean up anyway, figuring they'd leave us alone since we were picking up after them. :grr:

They don't want to go begging for your handouts. They want to maintain their old way of life. Which happened to be much more sustainable in many ways than yours.

[mainer]

10. wealth can be accrued in sustainable ways as well

Telecommuting. Home-based web businesses. High-tech inventions. Biotech research. Or you could just be an old-fashioned Stephen King or JK Rowling who creates worlds in your head. Those are the sorts of people we should welcome to Maine. And no, there's no reason for any of them to cut off shoreline access to the public. In fact, I do believe that's illegal in this state.

But if you resent Democrats like these and want them out of the state, I guess there are other places they could move to.

[northernlights]

19. I don't resent them. I am a transplant who hoped to work out of my home

I am explaining what I just saw last week from a local's perspective. There's a reason they call us transplants and Massholes. And I've been on the receiving end of plenty of garbage as a result -- from having my property trashed repeatedly, to being slandered and libeled -- all because I had Mass plates on my car when I bought a house up here.

They are being cut off from access to the shore where they clam. It may technically be illegal, but I don't see anybody taking down the signs and their cars will be towed if they park on those streets.

I do, however, hope to leave. I've been robbed of half my life savings since moving here. A portion of it is due to the W economy. But a significant portion was due to fraud and having my property and life trashed by locals. I'll be more than happy to get the hell out of here, if I could just sell my house I'd be gone by next fall or so.

[luckyleftyme2]

3. we gave lepage the lead

It started when they eliminated our man before the primaries!
I like Libby but could see towards the end she was in over her head! She wasn't dirty enough to stay in the kitchen!
Their was a post and many of us tried to get people to switch to Cutler! the lesser of the two evils so to speak!
Now we will have to wait and see. I personally think much of this free loading has gone to the extremes! Why should a person come in from another state and be allowed welfare? or another country for that! let the churches and others take care of these people!
We will never get jobs back in paper mills or logging in the next 20 years! for two reasons ;we clear cut our future and the demand for news print is declining!
The jobs we need have been sent over seas by the ones that just got elected!
I went hunting off the stud mill road the last week of 0ct. you'd starve to death trying to make a living logging their! I counted 5 trucks in 8 hours! Hell I can remember when you couldn't see for the dust from the trucks hauling!even the hog back road has been butchered!
god I can remember hunting back of greenfield in the 60's! what prime country then!

[molly77]

8. I am a democrat..have only voted republican once in my life

But I am glad that LePage won. This is the reason why. You may think that the wind farm agenda is clean and wonderful for the environment. It is the exact opposite. LePage was the only candidate who was against them. Not only are wind farms planned for upper state ME all over the place. ....They don't even have to produce energy. This is in First Wind's SEC report.cohoctonwindwatch The state makes money on renewable energy credits.

Baldaci was so in the corporate pocket , he got legislation passed that would keep towns and villages from having any say in where a wind farm was located . This was mostly in the north ...poorer and rural areas. Not democracy.

Then the transmission lines needed to send the little spurts of power to southern New England are much larger and more intrusive than what we are used to.Property can be taken by imminent domain for them.Children living under them are at high risk for leukemia.

There are positives for even the most dire situations. This is a good example. Oh...when you live next door to a wind farm, your property values go down. 30 to 50%.

[jpak]

12. The ignorance - it burns

"They don't even have to produce energy"

RECs are based on actual energy production.

try again

Lots of small Maine communities WANT and VOTED for their wind farms - these include Freedom, Oakfield, Vinalhaven and most recently Clifton.

There are many more that want them too - like Canton.

Oh yeah - there is no risk of leukemia or prickly heat or lumbago from power lines - or smart meters.

try again

Fuck LepPage

[mainer]

13. If you're against wind farms, then you're for oil drilling and nuclear

I don't know where the anti-windfarmers think energy comes from. Solar power isn't going to do it here.

[jpak]

14. LePage wants us to buy natural gas, uranium and hydroelectricity from Canada

and LNG from the Middle East

How dare we even THINK of producing energy here in Maine!!!1111

Pshaw & Harumph

[jpak]

15. Actually - solar works great in Maine and their are thousands of Maine homes and businesses

that use PV or solar hot water systems.

Large scale PV systems would compliment power production from Maine wind farms (on sunny but not breezy days) and would help power electric cars.

Electric cars made by GM that LePage would not have bailed out....

:hi:

[jpak]

11. Rural Maine is about to get "The Full Lepage"

LePage and the GOP will slash state support for education to balance the budget.

LePage and the GOP will cut taxes and further reduce state spending on education (see above).

More of the tax burden to fund schools will be shifted to these small towns.

Our new GOP Congress will not "bail out" struggling states to keep teachers in the classroom.

So....

Rural Maine communities will have 2 choices - fire teachers or raise property taxes.

They cannot raise property taxes - so they will lay off teachers.

LePage opposes wind farms - which many small Maine rural communities see as a means to lower their property taxes.

If they can't build the wind farms they want to build - what will be their options?

Fire more teachers.

If LePage enacts a voucher system and bases teacher pay on improving student performance - the best students in rural schools will go elsewhere. The poorest performing students will remain and erode teacher pay. If those remaining students want to get out of their "badder" local school they will use vouchers to *try* to go elsewhere as well (that is if the Cherry-Pickin' Charter Schools will let them in - lol!).

The result?

Teachers will abandon rural schools to go elsewhere and public school systems in rural Maine will collapse.

Hello Governor LePage

Goodbye Rural Maine

yup

[Crystal Clarity]

16. You have a way w/words jpak...

I already knew all of that, but you've outlined the horror so well and so starkly that it literally gives me chills.

:scared:

Yup

[jpak]

17. I forgot to mention LePage reducing the state minimum wage ($7.50) to the federal level ($7.25)

All those rural minimum wage jobs will have a more-betta "feel good" aspect to them under LePage.

yup

[mainer]

18. Well, I'm not allowed to comment on this anymore

because I've been labeled "elitist" for questioning the common sense of rural Mainers.

[Crystal Clarity]

20. Yeah, that's awful too but

a lower minimum wage will be harder on more populated areas then they will be on the rural parts of the state. Not alot of minimum wage jobs around here. All of the Wal Marts, fast food chains, retail stores, ect. are south of here in the more populated areas.

[Shorebound]

22. The only good part of LePage winning ...

is that he and the GOP will now have to make all the tough decisions needed to balance the state budget. There is, what, a billion-dollar deficit projected for the next biennial budget? Whoever won would have had to make some hard, hard choices about budget cuts or tax increases. The pension issue alone could bankrupt the state if it isn't addressed immediately. If LePage and the R legislature bungle it as badly as I suspect they will, Maine will be a blue state again in 2012.

[activa8tr]

24. I'm sure your new Governor will handle the pension issue handily by just

stopping pensions for state workers entirely!!!

Simple as that! 98 years old or not, why pay people not to be working? That's the Republican answer.

[DemocracyInaction]

21. Look at it this way

..repub or not, there are a whole shit pot of people in the legislature from "rural Maine" (who have always loved starving the cities to death as happens in all states). Lovely roads up north and unsafe crap a mule can't get down in the south (like a major highway with ruts in its pavement)! They want to be re-elected. Rural Maine will do just fine. Places like Portland will collapse under the weight of their taxes and welfare obligations. Charter schools or for-profit schools could care a crap-less about rural Maine---too few kids, too little money to steal. Ahhhhhh, but if you have more than 100 people and a chicken in your community, you are going to have the "new" education shoved down your throat and your wallet is going to be snatched out of your back pocket to pay for it. Thus, Repubs will rule for a long time unless the cities wake up and vote in huge turnouts.

[Crystal Clarity]

23. LOL! Ummm,

Have you actually been on rural Maine roads? They're not too bad as long as you don't mind getting re-alignments on your car twice a year... Ok, I'm exaggerating a little. But JUST a little.

And as far as representation goes, you've got that entirely back-wards. Maine Senate and House districts are apportioned by population, consequently the majority of our senators and representatives come from south of I-95. http://www.maine.gov/sos/cec/elec/apport/detailed.htm

Take a random rural state house district vs. a random state house district in Portland for example... Geographically speaking, that Portland house district may be 1 or 2 square miles while the rural district is approximately the size of Rhode Island. Therefore, while Portland alone has about 6 or 7 Reps, ONE rural Rep in a random house district has to cover 15 small towns, 3 Unincorporated townships and over 80 Unorganized territories. Seriously!... I once had a Maine house apportionment map in front of me and actually counted the towns and territories in one of these mega-districts just for kicks. :crazy:

But I will agree w/you on one thing... though there are not many rural reps. or sens. at all, most of the ones we do have in rural Maine could be considered "shit-pot" (politically speaking) because very few Dems/Libs are capable of being elected from these mostly conservative areas. Aroostook county seems to be just about the only exception to this rule.

[luckyleftyme2]

25. cuts and reality

How well I remember gov. Longley! He was a man who delivered on his campaign promises!
well at least the cuts and belt tightening! He made the transportation dept. keep vechicles longer,cut many purchase replacement programs etc.
The result = some of the best state employees left because they couldn't afford another year without a raise,they couldn't take the poor working conditions,listen to the daily bitching or see no end to working with worn out equipment!
10 years after he left office some dept.'s were still playing catch up for equipment!
when they decide to lease the turnpike ; that's when we want to get the tar and feathers out!