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May 06, 2008

Maine Republicans held a convention

Was Kool Aid was on Augusta Civic Center menu?

Turn Maine Blue and Collins Watch each have multiple good posts containing a selection of the available media links for stories about this past weekend's Republican State Convention in Augusta.

It strikes me that the Republicans seem to be designing their 2008 Maine campaign around throw-back issues that have little resemblance to today's political and economic predicaments. In other words, Maine's Republicans will be reciting Reagan-era mantras on spending and taxes while re-invigorating anti-choice and anti-gay constituencies; and crossing out "Soviet" and replacing it with "Islamo-fascist" in fearful national security rhetoric. This is underscored by the appearance of reactionary anti-gay Jesus-is-God columnist Cal Thomas, a Reaganaut throw-back if there ever was one.

Thomas is an interesting choice to provide reinforcement for Collins, since his raison d'être is to bash gays with holier-than-thou religious rhetoric. How that comports with the recent endorsement of Senator Collins by an ostensible gay rights outfit called the Human Rights Campaign is a real head scratcher.

Some discussion about what is going on is HERE. The endorsement, Collin's own actions, and the reaction of Christian-oriented hate groups in Maine all seem to be at odds. If we want to try to explain it all, I would say Collins truly is not on the same page as bashers like Thomas and the Christian Civic League, but she feels she needs votes from those quarters bad enough to throw them bones, and not throw them under the bus in the manner Barack Obama did with his former pastor.

It's sure to be an interesting campaign.

Posted by The Owl at 12:46. Filed under: Politics

Comments

It’s been a week since the acquittal of the Bangor Six, who were judged ‘not guilty’ after their criminal charges were heard in Penobscot County Superior Courthouse. They were arrested while protesting the war in the Federal Building on March 7, 2007, due to their refusal to leave the building until they had seen Senator Collins and shown her pictures of Maine’s war dead.

Afterward the trial, one juror said that “Collins needs to be more responsive to her constituents.” Did the juror believe that Collins does not understand how to respond to people or that she chooses not to care?

I don’t think so. Even after talking with Collins three times during the GOP Convention, and listening to the concerns of the Bangor Six during their testimony, I think that Senator Collins is in touch with people’s needs and is not entirely uncaring. She appears, though, to be out of touch with the power of ideas, particularly the ideas of those she represents.

The juror, a former lawyer, explained further, saying that Collins should “heed the words of Thomas Jefferson: When a man [or woman] assumes a public trust, [she or] he should consider himself [herself] as public property. This applies to her and to every elected public servant. Those individuals who serve in public office MUST resist the temptation to abuse the power, status and authority with which they are imbued and the attendant arrogance that so often prevails.”

Does Collins trust the power of ideas? Does she encourage and challenge the people she represents? Does she believe that we can lift ourselves up, raise our intellectual level and rise up to meet the challenges we face, think them through and solve them?

No. She didn’t get this message across at the convention. She relaxed into her status and her adulation, which shouted out in every one of the thousands of ‘Susan’ signs which carpeted the Civic Center this weekend.

She encouraged people to mindlessly chant her banal slogans, repeating, ‘six more years’, over and over.

Do these hypnotic slogans justify reelecting her for another term? She promised only two terms, not three, by the way. That broken promise would count as a ‘nontruth’. She’s still hanging around, with no new ideas.

I’m not expecting much in the way of compelling movement around ideas in her third election cycle. Ideas help people understand reality-- and there is no sign that she has come close to understanding the reality of what a ‘no-exit strategy’ policy will mean for the gas tanks, kitchen cupboards and medicine cabinets of people in Maine.

If the public really started paying attention to reality, they’d be getting very upset. They would be harder to control. Reality is scary, so Susan doesn’t encourage reality based thinking. She doesn’t debate ideas.

Susan doesn’t thoroughly discuss ideas with the public at large. She doesn’t get into the creative kinds of arguments where people find inspiration, by arguing out the details.

Instead, what I saw when I met Susan, was a person willing to repeat old slogans. She said to me, over and over, “I have to do what I think is right.” Slogans are not ideas, they’re just ways to drown out constructive conversation. They are bite-sized sound bites, words, chunks of sounds; but they are not a replacement for thinking.

It’s actually an insult to dominate and buffalo people with slogans, when they rightfully want our leaders to come up with fresh ideas. I am running partly because I want to understand the thinking that is going on in this country, the ideas which will help get us to a better place, not just keep us stuck.

Susan, you are stuck. People see it but they are polite in Maine. I don’t think you are going to do well this fall, not because Tom Allen is going to start turning on the light bulb, but because I’m going to keep turning up and expecting you to originate some fresh thinking.

At the convention, I asked you to do some soul searching and pay attention to the people. Now I am expecting you to go one further--I want you to think our way out of this mess. You were part of the leadership that got us here. Now it is your job to show how we will get out. My job, of course is to prove that I can do better. You are not making my job hard enough, not nearly. Try harder, Susan.

Posted by on May 06, 2008 at 14:50

Well, thanks for all that, Laurie. I think you're right, Susan Collins is not a bad, uncaring person, but she's hitched up to a cruel Republican bandwagon that's fed her all these years. But she is afraid of expanding discussion and meeting all kinds of people face-to-face in open forum. She NEVER would give us the time of day in 2002 and beyond when we paraded petitions and real knowledge about Iraq into her office on a daily basis. It's sad that her blinders led to arrests.

Posted by The Owl on May 06, 2008 at 16:28

Click Here to Check out Dean Scontras' First Web Commercial!

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Posted by on May 08, 2008 at 16:49

Mainly an intro video, void of any specific issues. Hypnotic beat. Not much to debate. I'm satisfied that Dean is human.

Posted by The Owl on May 08, 2008 at 18:13

I was at the convention. its a shame more people couldn't show up. some are apathetic and others are too bias to change party affiliation. and a lot of people don't care. not that i blame them or anything.

of course, the nomination process is flawed anyway. we need a new system like a ranking syste, something....i mean who likes mccain? or hillary or obama anyway? a minority, thats who. how can they be expected to represent 300 million people?! it's just insane.

none of these three will be my president. im a "dissenter", that's why the "party" doesn't want me unless i change my views, they won't change theirs. it's politics: force and coercion. not reason and persuasion.

of course!! the paul supporters were trying to "highjack" the conventions, that's the only way you can accomplish anything in government. it's a farce!

Posted by on May 20, 2008 at 14:47
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