You can get in a lot of trouble if you use the words “Libby Mitchell” and “old” in the same sentence.
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Just ask Republican gubernatorial candidate and Waterville Mayor Paul LePage, who got called ageist and sexist for suggesting that Mitchell, his 70-year-old Democratic rival, should be resting quietly at home because she was past her best-used-by date.
But being in trouble is more fun than being in Waterville. So, let’s give it a try.
Mitchell isn’t all that old. But her ideas are.
Some of her campaign brainstorms are leftovers from current Gov. John Baldacci’s administration. Others have been gathering dust since in the 1980s, when Joe Brennan lived in the Blaine House. A couple may have tags on them requesting that they be returned to Ken Curtis, who hasn’t been governor since Herman’s Hermits were hip.
And Mitchell’s themes are hollow echoes of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who called his program the “New Deal,” although it’s now known as the “Senior Citizen Discount.”
If Maine’s motto is “Dirigo” – Latin for “I lead” – Mitchell’s is probably the Latin equivalent of “I’ll be blundering along behind everybody else.”
There’s a certain irony here. Liberals like Mitchell are supposed to be about changing the way government operates. It’s the essence of their political philosophy and has led to such innovations as school consolidation, selling the state’s wholesale liquor business and putting the Department of Health and Human Services’ Medicaid program on a new computer that didn’t work for five years.
But in this election, the guy who’s all for changing stuff is LePage, who’s supposed to be a conservative – which is defined as somebody who’s fundamentally opposed to change. Meanwhile dowdy Mrs. Mitchell (sorry) keeps doddering along (sorry) trying to make sure state government continues to operate in the same old (sorry) way.
If elected, she’d keep the Dirigo health program (motto: I’d Lead If I Had The Money, But I Don’t So I Guess I’ll See What The Feds Do And Then Follow Them) with only minor changes. Such as a new name. Also, she’d create a “global” health care budget. “Global” is the term policy wonks use when they have no idea how to solve a problem.
She’d reform welfare by leaving it pretty much the way it is now. As she told the Bangor Daily News, “I don’t think it does any good to beat up on the people who are most hurt by this recession.”
She’d improve education by opposing charter schools, merit pay for teachers and merging university campuses. She’d instruct bureaucrats at the state Department of Education to be more helpful to teachers by explaining how to instruct their students on such topics as “innovation and entrepreneurship.”
She’d improve the state’s finances by engaging in “robust” borrowing, including $100 million over four years to buy public lands. “The state has the capacity to pay bonds,” she told the Bangor paper.
Economic development? On her website, she proposes merging the Department of Economic and Community Development and the State Planning Office into the “Governor’s Office of Strategic Initiatives and Job Creation.” Yeah, that seems better. Also, she’d eliminate tax provisions “that put Maine at a competitive disadvantage.”
As a legislator, she voted for most of those tax provisions.
On energy, she favors all sorts of unspecified alternatives to fossil fuel. Such as natural gas. Which is a fossil fuel. She’s also a big fan of what she calls “aggressive weatherization.”
Sounds like violence with an R-40 insulation rating.
As for family values, here’s what she said in a Sept. 21 debate in Waterville, as reported in the Morning Sentinel: “[G]overnment spending is a blueprint for our family values.”
Mitchell is firmly on record as supporting public-private partnerships, coming up with plenty of venture capital from some unspecified source, and using more local food in schools and prisons – all proposals that have been made a million times before by political candidates who had no clue what needed to be done.
“We have got to change our strategy for growing our economy,” she told an Auburn audience in late September, according to the Lewiston Sun Journal. “We all have to find new and better ways of doing things.”
Maybe she was trying to tell a joke.
Probably not.
Mitchell has spent the better part of four decades in government, absorbing so much experience that her brain apparently froze up during the Clinton administration. At a South Portland rally with the aforementioned former president (Roosevelt wasn’t available), Mitchell said, “This is exactly why I’m running for office, so we can get Maine back to where we were then [during the Clinton years].”
What an old thing for Libby Mitchell to wish for.
Oops, that was a typo. I didn’t mean “old.” I meant “odd.”
Although, it also could be that I have trouble understanding people of her generation.
I just had a birthday, making me older than Paul LePage. Congratulations may be e-mailed to aldiamon@herniahill.net.
A little trivia
If elected, Libby would be the oldest governor in the nation (assuming another non imcumbent who is older does not win — I have not seen a breakdown of the candidate of the 40 states or so up for grabs). The current olderst is the gov of Okalohoma at 69.
Steven Scharf
SCSMedia@aol.com
Retreads are a thing of the past…Let us move on..
Thank you Shawn Moody! Thank you, for addressing to Mayor LePage at this evening’s debate his arrogance, disregard, and disrespect towards President Obama’s recent vacation travel to Maine.
Mayor LePage indemnifies the polarized belief that the only way to have more for oneself is to blame others regardless of their place. As Lepage again demonstrated by interrupting the debate an further imagined that Libby Mitchell would hold a poster of President Bush in effigy making again accusation of unconscionable error and ways. It demonstrates the under current that belies the effort of honest hard working people that others will take from them that which they value most.
I don’t know. I normally get a good chuckle from these columns. They’re typically biting and wry, yet insightful. This one, though, just doesn’t get off the ground. I think my reaction is partially because I feel there’s some respect that is due someone who devotes himself/herself extensively to public service and that respect is missing (for me) here. Could just be the time we’re in, but it saddens me to see this happening.
Happy Birthday to you,Al. Didn’t you just have one of those last year?? You have a multitude of great ideas.
Maybe…next time you will run for Gov’na.
Al, what do you think of Jenkins?
And people said I was a mean S.O.B. I talked to Libby during her meet-and-greet at the Rack during Sugarloaf Homecoming. She volunteered out of the blue that “Al Diamon has never liked me.” I see what she means.
Al, Think you missed the fact that Mitchell said that Dirigo is not needed after health care passed. BTW, you’re right LePage says he wants to change things. But he never says what – he insulted a reporter when she asked where the cuts were in his program. Cutler keeps pounding him on the fact that his numbers don’t add up but he ignores the question. Meanwhile, he whines that he’s a big victim and other people are mean, too.
Like other tea bag favorites, Paul LePage generally snarls and harumphs whenever cooperation with the federal government is brought into the conversation. He has to do it, don’t you see, because it’s in the script. But he has to be careful, for all their hatred of the national government, tea baggers do love to shout “USA, USA, we’re number one!”
In that vein, he does his part by supporting reinstatement of the death penalty Mainers eliminated in 1887. If it were done Mainers would help the nation move toward number one from our measly fifth place ranking behind China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, while just ahead of Yemen and Sudan. This would prove we Americans are no slouches despite our ranking 24th in life expectancy; 30th in infant mortality; 19th of 20 of the richest countries in child well-being; 27th in student math performance; 22nd in student science lliteracy, to cite a few categories where we are far from numero uno. By reinstating the death penalty as punishment for a broad number of capital offenses, (I think tweeting while driving and beginning each spoken phrase with “ya know” should be included) we in dirigo state could show the world that, like Texas, Maine means business in more ways than one! Besides, we would help our nation move to the top of the global heap, adding to our 1st place ranking in prisoners (per 100,000 pop.) and arms sales, two categories where anything but number one is an insult to a first rate power.
Yawn……..
This year typifies the dilemma we all face: who in his right mind would actually select ANY of the candidates for governor? Paul LePage is a complete joke, not to mention an obvious enemy to Maine because he seems to run on a typical and all-too-common political platform ‘what’s in it for me?’ where he would allow almost any reasonable offer that would fill his own best interest. (notice I avoided anything more incriminating [smirk] – imagine wanting more nuclear power plants in Maine for starters? Holy crap – good idea to continue to sell land to foreign interests, let our water be co-opted, and likely be sure to water down environmental restrictions to open doors to exploitation ‘for the good of the people’ . A universal takings clause is in the offing for those of you who don’t see it coming. Is Maine going to send a message this year? And for the record – Mitchell should garner MORE votes with the photo about Bush and terrorism, speaking of war criminals.
Rich what is your dilemma, it sounds like your all in for Libby? What makes you think that Libby Mitchell, after her 30 years in Maine Politics is actually going to do something novel or fresh? What has she done for the last 30 years, it might give you a clue about tomorrow!