After a lackluster fundraising performance so far, and despite promising not to, Green Independent gubernatorial candidate Lynne Williams has announced she will switch to private financing for her campaign.
See my Down East column for the details and possible repercussions. Full campaign email after the jump.
Over at Down East, you can read my interview with newly-unenrolled Representative Jim Campbell.
My analysis of fundraising in the gubernatorial race so far.
I was wrong in a recent Down East post when I said Maine placed the sixth largest financial burden on our college students of any state in the nation.
In this week's column, I write about how we're actually worse and some ideas about how to address the problem, which may be key to solving Maine's demographic crisis and to our economic growth.
As if to prove my point, the Kenebec Journal and Morning Sentinel have an apropos article this morning on the difficulties facing student borrowers in Maine.
At Down East today, I write about Eliot Cutler's run for governor as an independent.
Cutler also has an op-ed in the Press Herald today blasting the Democratic Party and the Maine Education Association for opposing charter schools.
Not sure how I missed this for my recent election retrospective:
Oliver Outerbridge, the Portland pizza shop owner who ran for Water District Board of Trustees on an anti-fluoridation platform, had a great campaign slogan: "Today's mighty oak is yesterday's nut that held its ground. Elect the nut."
Outerbridge lost by an almost two-to-one margin to his opponent, Kenneth Levinsky.
Click here to enter the 2009 Maine election results betting pool! In the Down East post, I explain the contest and give a quick overview of the state of the ballot question campaigns.
Sorry I haven't been able to post more lately. The confluence of referendums and the health care debate has made my life pretty hectic at the moment.
For Down East this week, I wanted to see what the campaigns contesting referendum questions 3 and 5 are up to. Take a look.
I should note that, as of today, the Yes on 3 campaign now has an actual website. They also seem to have impressed the Sun Journal editorial board.
Here's video of Newell Augur doing what appears to be some one-man campaigning against the repeal:
My interview with Senate President and 2010 gubernatorial candidate Libby Mitchell is up over at Down East today. In it, she discusses her campaign, her career, her age and topless coffee shops, among other issues.
Since I our conversation took place on International Talk Like a Pirate Day, I asked her to engage in some salty pirate talk. The audio below is the result.
In my Down East column this week, I look at trends over the past ten years of citizen initiatives and try to determine how good a chance the tax reform veto referendum has of making it to the ballot.
I also made some graphs:
This week at Down East, I take a look at the 1999 medical marijuana referendum as a reference point for this November's vote on expanding the law to allow state-regulated non-profit dispensaries.
Despite the 10-year time difference, I think the results of the 1999 referendum is still the most useful information in predicting the outcome this November. Little in-state polling has been done on the issue in the intervening years and when I tried matching marijuana-related arrests by county to the electoral data, I found only a small correlation, without statistical significance.
Data used in the map is from the Maine Secretary of State and Maine Geographic Information Systems. Blue towns voted for medical marijuana, with darker shades representing higher margins in favor. Towns in shades of orange voted against the initiative.
I interviewed Rosa Scarcelli for my latest Down East Column.
Other recent DE work I haven't yet linked to here:
At Down East today, I take a long look at Les Otten's campaign and the controversy over his website. It turns out his campaign site isn't the first time he's borrowed someone else's logo. Here's a hint:
On a related note, I'm very sorry to hear that Lorie Costigan, Down East's online editor, has been let go from the company for financial reasons. In our conversations, she always showed a deep commitment to the future of journalism in Maine and she has done a great job creating a vibrant website which now hosts a long list of essential Maine blogs.
