By now virtually everyone has not only heard about the Freedom of Access Act (FOAA) request made by The Bangor Daily News seeking to obtain information about holders of concealed weapons permits but has formed an opinion about it.
I have plenty to say about the foolishness of a news organization attempting to step out on that particular limb without a very clear, very detailed, very pre-emptive explanation of what it is doing and why.
Much more transparent than simply, quietly putting the reason on the filed request. The reaction that happened should have been expected.
There was a time when I treated a State of the Union address like a national holiday. I used to gather my friends together, host a watch party, get some pizza and excitedly hang on every word uttered by the president.
Slowly, though, the shine wore off, and the event became less a fun event and more of a chore. I still watch, but the speech can barely hold my attention any more.
Remember John Baldacci?
I certainly do. This was a unique Maine politician who managed to somehow turn from one of the most popular political figures in the state when he was in the amoral swamp of Washington, D.C., into the most unpopular governor in recent Maine history.
When he entered Congress in 1994 amid the national conservative wave, he positioned himself as a common-sense moderate pragmatist, deeply rooted in the fabric of central Maine.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is stepping out on a very flimsy metaphorical branch, which threatens to snap under his weight. That limb is immigration reform.
But I am glad he is stepping on it, and I hope the limb doesn’t break.
I will admit from the outset that I have had, for a long time now, a different opinion about immigration than most of the rest of my party.
Democratic firm Public Policy Polling came out with a survey this week that showed Gov. Paul LePage winning a three-way match-up against independent Eliot Cutler and every Democrat tested.
The same survey showed that when running alone against just a Democrat, LePage was running behind and would face a steep path to re-election.
The howling from Democrats all across Maine began almost immediately.
Let’s get the obvious out of the way first: The “deal” to avert the so-called fiscal cliff is an embarrassingly bad piece of legislation. Historically awful, really. Just horrendous.
But I would have voted for it.
Governing is not about voting only for things you support and voting against things you don’t. We might wish it were, but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
If governing were about nothing more than principled stands on ideologically polarizing issues, the entire government would be in paralysis in perpetuity.
Last December, I took a look at what was then the future and made a series of predictions about the next 12 months. I have to say I didn’t do half bad.
Things I got right: President Barack Obama defeating Mitt Romney in Maine, same-sex marriage passing, the world not imploding once it did, Gov. Paul LePage having a better 2012 than 2011, the Republicans losing the House and my propensity for irritating people.
For the past month I’ve been telling you what is wrong with my party, what Republicans can do to fix it and what I think we can all expect from the future of the GOP.
But if I could distill the message of the 3,000 or so words I devoted to the subject in the past month, it would be this: The pendulum of politics swings, and it will swing back.
In American politics, one party enjoys an advantage for awhile, but invariably the opposing party adapts and regains the advantage. There is no such thing as a permanent realignment.
Editor’s note: This is the final piece in a four-part series about the future of the Republican Party.
I’ve spent three weeks now being somewhat hard on my own party.
In so doing, I have attempted to diagnose the fundamental problems that are holding back the Republicans from forging a winning coalition that has the capability to dominate electoral politics.
There is not a Democrat in the country, or in Maine, who isn’t smirking just a little bit right now.
On the heels of an election they believe vindicated not only their ideological agenda, but also their approach to government, the collective derision of the left is aimed squarely at a Republican Party, who they dismissively believe is unresponsive to the needs and wants of the voters.
Smug, and rather obnoxious. But not entirely wrong.
