When Hillary Clinton was running for president she was thrown under the bus by a lot of Democrats for being old-school. Words like “ageism” and “sexism” were also later used to explain her defeat. Obama groupies and desperate Independents defended their choice by shouting relentlessly for “change.”
It’s like an old familiar tune this year. Libby Mitchell, a feisty go-getter like Clinton, is depicted as the “status quo,” even though there has never been anything close to a modern woman of her caliber in the Blaine House.
You may be fearing I’m about to get all upitty feminista on you, but I prefer to call this the Fairy Tale Theory of American Politics. In our Prince Charming fantasy, we long for a dashing “new” guy to ride in on a white horse and save us from ourselves. We are so caught up in our dream we forget a lot of the facts.
For instance, the recent Forbes Magazine article that gives Maine an “F” for business friendliness is being waved around as evidence that we need “change” in the form of Paul LePage or Eliot Cutler. Of course the fact is that Utah is at the top of the Forbes’ list because it lowered its corporate and personal income tax rates, which is something Libby Mitchell did and the Republicans in Maine un-did at the polls. Eliot Cutler took no leadership position in the biggest fight for real change in Maine in 40 years.
Is Forbes Magazine right? Of course not. In the same article it rated New Jersey as a better place to live than Maine. C’mon. New Jersey? No matter, though. Gleeful Republicans and Cutler supporters point to Forbes, dismiss Mitchell, and chant, “change.”
Then there is Maine’s pension “crisis.” Forget that the Republican governor led the effort to increase the state pension system’s investment assumption from 8% to 8.2% as a gimmick to balance the budget, or that Libby Mitchell as a legislative leader worked to get a constitutional amendment enacted that began finally to responsibly fund it. LePage and Cutler have done nothing to help solve this problem, but we are told so often by Fox News that Democrats are tax and spenders, Republicans are fiscally conservative, and that states should be run like big business that we have come to believe it.
We forget the change we wanted in 2008 was healthcare reform and we got it thanks to Democrats. We forget the change we wanted in 2008 was tax cuts for the middle class and we got them. We forget that Wall Street and big corporations plunged our country down the toilet and Democrats threw us a life line. We forget that Democrats have led the fight for equality and equal opportunity.
How serendipitous was it that on the Sunday before the election, good ol’ Angus King crawled out of his cave to tap Cutler as the Change Agent? It was, according to the Maine Sunday Telegram, the anti-Cutler mailings that “pushed him over,” but of course most of us received the now infamous mailer two weeks ago and an apology for it in the interim. Angus also says we need someone who can bring people together…and well, shucks, Eliot is a smart guy, so we should vote for him.
Who was it that brought together Republicans and Democrats to pass five state budgets during the blistering economic recession without raising taxes? Oh yeah, it was Libby Mitchell. And it was Libby Mitchell who withdrew her controversial bill for paid sick leave when its partisan divisiveness became a distraction from governing responsibly.
Is there any evidence that Cutler brings people together? I’m his state representative, live down the street from him and have never spoken to him or laid eyes on him in this town. Ever.
In fact yesterday my very bright 13 year-old daughter was doing homework three quarters of a mile down the street from this year’s “change” candidate. This is a girl who is a student of government, is on a first name basis with her U.S. Congresswoman, has chatted with Libby Mitchell in our living room, and marches in parades with local elected officials of all parties. She came out of her room and asked, “does Eliot Cutler actually live in Cape Elizabeth? I’m doing a paper for school and it says he lives here. Is that true?”
Does it matter if it’s true?
Cynthia Dill is a mother, lawyer, college instructor and state representative from Cape Elizabeth, Maine. She is the author of DCW, a blog that has been published on the Huffington Post. Find out more information at www.cynthiadill.com
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