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By From ME to you Posted in Elections — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Spring is here (sort of) and the body politic is watching the emergence of candidates from their winter cocoons. Maine, being a very blue state (nothing to do with the cold), has an overabundance of Left winged blue birds! One such blue bird is Mark Lawrence of York County who is running to fill Rep. Tom Allen's (D-ME) seat.

The Portland (Maine) Press Herald is doing a series on all the candidates. Here is the article on Mr. Lawrence:

Lawrence Runs in 1st District

If you read through the article without gagging many deregatory terms to describe Mr. Lawrence will come to mind. The least offensive I can think of is kool-aid drinker (abbreviated 'kad')! What people outside the state won't realize is that he is one of the more conservative kad Democrats running.

His 'biggest" achievement, by his account, in state government was the "increased investment in research and development". Read that as more state spending. Note that he doesn't mention the increased taxation by the kad Dems that has been killing the state's economy for the last 40 years!

So what can we look forward to if Mr. Lawrence is elected? More of the same left wing policies? Will he get the nomination probably not! He isn't far left enough! The Democratic nominee will probably be Chellie Pingree, although Ethan Strimling will give her a run for her money!! The other three Democrats, Michael Brennan, Adam Cote and Steve Meister don't have the name recognition that Lawrence, Strimling and Pingree have so I don't think they'll be a factor in this cycle.

The two Republican candidates are very good. Charlie Summers is a Lt. Cmdr in the Naval Reserves and just returned from a tour in Iraq. Mr. Summers worked for a while in Sen. Olympia Snowe's (R-ME) office. So far he seems to talk the talk but he hasn't enumerated any specifics. Of course trying to run a political campaign from Iraq while on active duty would pose some difficulties.

The other Republican Dean Scontras seems a little more right of Mr. Summers. His site is a little more specific but as of yet I've not heard the candidates head to head. I personally know two of Mr. Scontras' advisors so I'm pretty much leaning his way just on the strength of those two peole supporting him!

I'll try to talk with both of these gentlemen and maybe flesh out their positions a litle more.

Realistically the chances of either of these two candidates getting elected is: Not much! The 1st District is about as right wing as San Francisco! There is an outside chance that an endorsement from Susan Collins (R-ME) might shift some moderate Democratic votes to the Republican candidate. Whether it would be enough to overcome the heavily Democratic poulation of Southern Maine is questionable. But I hope that both these candidates remain active regardless of the outcome!

Maybe the eventual Democratic candidate will suffer from 'foot in mouth' disease and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory! One can only hope!