Politicians . . . It's Wake Up Time!

While watching events in Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries our thoughts would do well to drift back to the election just completed here in the United States. It was surely less violent than what we watch on TV today, but the voice was just as angry. The People are fed up with the politics as usual.

As much as anything else, the People voted to throw out the old and try something, or someone, else. And, if the new ones do not deliver, they, too, will be thrown out. It's not Democrat versus Republican, Left versus Right. Political parties of all stripes are less and less meaningful. Citizens all over are saying: We are through with undelivered promises; through with waste; through with those who are working harder for themselves than for us.

The social networks can work just as well here in the United States as they are in the Middle East. Politicians, at every level, had better check the internet. You are being watched!

DIRIGO - QUO VADIS? (Oh Maine! Where are you going?)

With all the chatter from the candidates about creating jobs, cutting spending, raising taxes, larger class sizes, more education spending, and all the other campaign promises, it's difficult to get a sense of any of the candidates' vision of Maine for the future.

Are we to be a vacation destination with summer camping, swimming and sailing, antiquing, fall foliage tours and apple picking, and winter skiing?

Are we to be a traditional agricultural economy dependent upon family owned farms, and fishing in local waters?

Are we to be a high tech and research economy?

How do we retain our young people and attract new talent to our State?

I have not heard any of the candidates attempt to tie all of these constituencies together.  No politician dares confront the reality of the two Maines: the populated South, and the agricultural and fishing communities of the North and Down East.  There are huge implications for taxation, for delivery of services, and for environmental issues in every region of the State.

A Herculean effort in a bipartisan legislative environment, with strong executive leadership, is required to overcome parochial interests and formulate a long range plan for the future. But, we cannot go forward as a State unless these truths are addressed.

Unhappily, the time does not appear to be now.