Sorting Out the Dem Goobs (and a few independents)
Last month, we examined the street sweepings that constitute the Republican gubernatorial field. In the interest of fairness (sorta), it’s now the Democrats’ turn to empty out their garbage pail of goobs for inspection.
As with the GOP, there are too many candidates, and also more than a few that if your name turned up in their FBI file, you’d want it redacted. In that spirit, here are some important (spoiler alert: not important) ways to distinguish the abominable from the catastrophic.
Who has a cool nickname? Nobody, so I’ll just make some up. Nirav Shah, former head of the Maine Center for Disease Control, is both a doctor and a lawyer, so he understands science and law. That makes him the Anti-RFK Jr. Also the Anti-Trump. And the Anti-Bondi. As well as the Anti-Noem. All of which are better than his high school nickname of Germ Geek.
Hannah Pingree is a policy wonk. As the chief underling for Gov. Janet Mills, she’s in charge of all sorts of swell policies, from energy to housing to seeing if global warming can be used to wash away Graham Platner’s oyster farm. Which reminds me of a line from famed humorist Dave Barry: “Making policy is a form of institutional masturbation.”
Troy Jackson speaks both English and French, which makes him bilingually incoherent. The former state Senate president has strong backing from labor unions and a weak grasp of political maneuvering, tending to pick the sorts of fights that even when he wins, he loses. His frequent clashes with Mills and his recent “debate” with GOP goob candidate Bobby Charles are just a couple examples of Jackson’s need for a cleanup on aisle smart.
Speaking of fights, Shenna Bellows, gender aside, has the biggest balls of anybody in this race. That’s not necessarily a compliment, because sometimes her giant gonads get her in deep shit. In her role as Maine’s secretary of state, she once tried to ban Donald Trump from the presidential ballot, a move nullified by the U.S. Supreme Court. And she has yet to adequately explain how a bunch of absentee ballots ended up in an Amazon box delivered to somebody who didn’t order them.
The big question for Angus King III is whether enough stupid people will cast ballots for him in the June primary because they think he’s his father, a former governor and current U.S. senator. He isn’t, and even if he was, that still wouldn’t be a good reason to vote for him.
There are a couple Democratic candidates who can safely be disregarded because they have no name recognition, no organization and no money. Former FBI agent and lawyer Jason Cherry realized the truth of that statement and dropped out to run for the state Legislature. Kenneth Forrest Pinet may not even be a real candidate, or once was but has since been abducted by aliens.
In much the same category, there are also some independents running for governor. The only one of any consequence is Rick Bennett, who I dealt with last month because he’s a former Republican and well enough organized and funded that he doesn’t deserve to be lumped in with these regurgitated hairballs.
Ed Crockett is a former Democratic state representative from Portland who thinks his experience in sales and marketing somehow qualifies him to be governor, a position that mostly involves selling and marketing the unsalable and unmarketable. On his website, he takes credit for increased school funding, higher pay for teachers, cheaper prescription drugs, protecting public lands, and lots of other things he was only marginally involved in.
John Glowa Sr. claims to be an environmental activist, but he’s using that description to avoid admitting he’s really an anti-hunting activist. Glowa wants to get rid of the sales tax and use all that money the state won’t have to build 10,000 cheapo public housing units.
Derek Levasseur once ran for the U.S. Senate as a Republican without anyone noticing. He wants to eliminate property taxes and make up for that lost revenue by raising the sales tax. He’s also against government waste. But then, who isn’t?
Alexander Murchison wants to build nuclear power plants, have the government seize abandoned properties to sell to people looking for housing, give tax breaks to people who sell their summer camps for year-round housing, and has no idea how to fix the health care system. On that last one, he’s at least more honest than any other gubernatorial candidate, so points to him for that. But deduct a few for him being clueless on the subject.
That’s it, so get ready to vote in hopes voter fraud will save us all.
Al Diamon thinks the answer to most of Maine’s problems is to stop plowing the roads in the winter, so everyone just stays home and drinks. He also writes a monthly column for The Maine Sportsman and contributes a piece to the Bangor Daily News’ e-mail newsletter, Maine Politics Insider, every Wednesday. He can be e-mailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
