"POLITICS AND OTHER MISTAKES"
Learning the hard way
By Al Diamon
Barbara Merrill spent the summer demonstrating she's not qualified to be governor.Of course, ineptness doesn't have much to do with electability. Democratic Gov. John Baldacci has devoted nearly four years to proving he's incapable of running the state, and he's still ahead in most polls.
Even if competency turns out to be an issue, Merrill, a Democrat-turned-independent, still has an outside shot at winning the Blaine House, mostly because the public has been distracted by such crucial matters as whether Pluto is a planet or a cartoon dog, and hasn't paid much attention to her bumbling campaign. A recent fictitious survey to determine which candidates had the highest name recognition found that while a majority of voters correctly identified Baldacci as "that doofus in Augusta" and Republican challenger Chandler Woodcock as "one of the main sources of avian flu," most people thought Merrill was the star of the new TV series "Ugly Betty."
It could be worse. The most common response when Green Independent Party gubernatorial candidate Pat LaMarche's name was mentioned was "Tom Cruise's new baby."
Speaking of Cruise, there's no truth to the rumor he's secretly running Merrill's campaign. If he were, her television ads would have lots of explosions and people jumping on couches. Which would be an improvement.
Merrill's most recent spot promotes a study her campaign conducted that proves that Democratic legislators vote like Democrats, while Republicans act like Republicans. It's not clear why this should be surprising. It's also not clear what it has to do with the governor's race. Maybe it's something to do with Scientology.
Still, this spot is better than Merrill's first ad, which claimed somebody (it doesn't specify who) sued the state over the amount of pollution the Baldacci administration was going to allow paper mills to dump in the Androscoggin River. The commercial had to be pulled from the air and revised when it turned out there was no such suit.
In its new form, the ad said, "Legal action was taken and the commissioner [of the Department of Environmental Protection] was forced to resign." There's an inference there that a judge ordered the commissioner to quit, but that isn't true, either.
Commissioner Dawn Gallagher was forced from office not by the courts, but by Baldacci, after it was revealed her staff had conducted secret meetings with paper industry representatives to craft a deal delaying the river cleanup.
Merrill's commercials aren't just inaccurate. They're also irrelevant. She's yet to run a single spot dealing with issues that voters might consider helpful in deciding who they'll support for governor, such as high taxes, low job growth or the stagnant economy.
It's not as if Merrill has nothing to say on those subjects. In her book "Setting The Maine Course: We Can Get There From Here," she lays out a clear plan to deal with a state government she calls "flabby, overweight and darn near immobile." She promises to fire incompetent bureaucrats, trim social services to sustainable levels and "[r]ecognize there are needs we can't meet even though the needs are real." Then she spells out where she'd cut spending and why.
The book is loaded with the sort of straight talk the public might appreciate in a gubernatorial candidate. Why none of that has made it into her advertising is a mystery.
Maybe the campaign is under Cruise control after all.
In August, Merrill was fined $10,000 by the state Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices for misusing public funds. According to published reports, when asked by the commission to explain why the campaign illegally reimbursed two workers with taxpayer dollars, Merrill's campaign manager, Harold James Webster, said, "Because I'm an idiot."
Which qualifies him to be commissioner of health and human services. He'd also be in line to head the Department of Environmental Protection, but Merrill has already promised that job to Tom Cruise.
Naturally, the candidate moved quickly to recover from her embarrassing ethics slip by focusing on an issue of importance to every Mainer. She called for a ban on political signs on public property.
What's next? Scofflaws who spit on sidewalks?
No, wait. Merrill has finally latched onto an issue worthy of voters' attention. She announced her plan to expand passenger rail service by allowing casino gambling on trains. Except she did it the day after Baldacci unveiled his own rail proposal. She looked like somebody who'd arrived at the station right after the last train across the public's attention span had departed.
Merrill needs to stop taking advice from idiots, admitted or otherwise (hi, Phil), and start focusing on stuff that matters to real people. Either that or title her next book, "Off Course: We Can't Get There From Here, But We Can Spend A Lot Of Money Not Doing It."
She can dedicate it to Tom Cruise.
I promise I'll notice if you e-mail me at ishmaelia@gwi.net.
