The list of young Maine politicians with serious prospects of someday being elected to higher office is shorter than Gov. Paul LePage’s temper.
On the Democratic side, there’s former House Speaker Hannah Pingree and, let’s see … uh … what about … er – Hey, somebody call security! Gubernatorial primary loser and smear campaign non-participant Rosa Scarcelli is trying to crash the party again.
The Republican incubator isn’t functioning much better, with retreads like congressional loser Dean Scontras and state Senate President (and congressional loser) Kevin Raye clogging up the fallopian tubes. The GOP elected a lot of new legislators last year, but most of them have so far displayed skill sets best suited for long tenures on the junior varsity.
That situation leaves Democrats desperate for a candidate with detectable brain activity to run against GOP U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe next year (after she uses the Republican primary to put a decisive end to the myth of the Tea Party’s political influence). The GOP may be forced to call on Raye to make another bid for the 2nd Congressional District seat currently held by Democrat Mike Michaud, who’s already beaten him once.
In the 1st District, the names being floated to take on incumbent Dem U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree (and her multi-millionaire fiancé Donald “Perhaps you’d like a ride on my corporate jet, sweetie pie” Sussman) include Scontras (before he decided to move to Virginia), State Treasurer Bruce Poliquin (a disaster in 2010’s GOP gubernatorial primary), state Sen. Jon Courtney (exactly how is he different from Scontras?), state Rep. Meredith Strang Burgess (just kidding – I think) and anybody – anybody! – with the last name Cianchette.
This unsettled situation leaves the door open for a newcomer. Somebody with a fresh approach. Also, somebody with more ambition than common sense. And it wouldn’t hurt if that person were independently wealthy.
That looks like a description of – assuming you’re willing to forget the independent-wealth thing – Patrick Calder.
Wait. Who?
Those who pay closer attention to grassroots politics than many psychiatrists consider healthy may remember Calder as the Republican candidate in Portland’s House District 114 in last November’s election. He got trounced two to one by Democrat Peter Stuckey, an outcome that has in no way diminished his enthusiasm.
“My vote share was higher as a percentage than what Dean Scontras got in Portland,” he said.
Calder recently sent out an e-mail to GOP insiders, introducing himself (“a young [he’s 28], optimistic, fiscally conservative candidate”) and saying he was thinking about taking on Pingree.
His background isn’t exactly ideal. Although he was born and raised in Eastport, he left Maine right after high school and didn’t return until 2010. On a League of Young Voters candidate questionnaire last year, he said he took off because of the state’s high taxes, but if that’s so, what’s he doing back here?
Calder works in the merchant marine as a ship’s engineering officer, which he claims gives him all the experience he’ll need for Congress (“running an operation, meeting a payroll”). During his legislative race, he called himself a member of the “Portland Tea Party,” but now says it would be “shortsighted to only cater to a small segment of the population.”
As for issues, he’s against government spending of almost any sort. “I am extremely reluctant to fund things with federal dollars,” he told me in a phone interview. During his legislative race, he said he wanted to deregulate the insurance industry and was opposed to government-run health-care programs. Watch out, Medicare.
All that sounds eerily Scontras-like, but Calder does display some differences. Unlike his predecessor, he’s pro-choice on abortion and has a position on same-sex marriage that’s “evolved” since last fall, when he said he opposed the idea. He now favors civil unions and promises to vote against a constitutional amendment to limit marriage to one man and one woman.
“I have bigger issues to deal with than who’s sleeping with who,” he said.
According to the League of Young Voters, Calder believes that before government gives welfare checks to immigrants and refugees, it should help “Mainers that have been here for generations.” He told the Portland Press Herald he wanted to save tax money by “eliminating waste, inefficiency, and by a strict outside audit of the state’s finances.”
As for Pingree, “She’s been a very poor representative,” he said. “She hasn’t represented the interests of honest, hard-working Mainers.”
She has, however, brushed aside opponents with relative ease thanks to her hefty campaign war chest. Calder admitted he couldn’t match her fundraising, but insisted he still had a solid chance of beating her.
“History is full of cases of somebody winning elections when people had very little faith,” he said.
And Republicans have nothing but faith to lose.
Young Turks and old farts can both e-mail me at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
Should the “Cutler Files” really be characterized as a “smear campaign?” My understanding is that the controversy concerns the allegiance and (former) anonymity of its producers and not its content. Which I never saw — but I don’t recall any specific falsehoods being cited. It mostly came from research that its creators did on the web. Negative spin, sure — but spin involves emphasis and de-emphasis, not falsehood. If that’s a “smear,” then all the candidates of all stripes did it.
I happen to live with one of those new legislators who you say belong on the junior varsity team Al, and she is anything but a bench warmer. Her and many like her are sharp as razors and have a ton of real world experience that will serve them well in the months ahead, doing what we put them in office to do. Months from now, my guess is that Al’s main form of exercise will be backpeddling , and his diet will consist of various cold and hot dishes of crow..