"POLITICS AND OTHER MISTAKES"
Nothing terribly new
By Al Diamon
By their natures, conservatives are suspicious of new ideas. They see no reason to embrace every hot fad those darned liberals dream up, such as boxer briefs, the Earth circling the sun or merging the WB and UPN networks into the CW. The old ways - tested and true - are still working fine. Except, maybe, for the WB and UPN.In any case, it's unreasonable to expect conservatives to advocate creative approaches to solve Maine's problems. They think creative approaches are what got the state into this mess in the first place.
Sprawl? A direct result of federal highway subsidies.
Rising health care costs? Blame Pasteur, Salk and Dr. Phil.
Everything else? That's Democratic Gov. John Baldacci's fault.
So it should come as no surprise that Republican gubernatorial candidate Chandler Woodcock is not basing his campaign on new ideas. Or even old ideas. He appears to believe the best approach is almost no ideas.
In op-ed pieces, Woodcock has said, "I'm focused on improving our business climate, reducing taxes, making health insurance more affordable and implementing real spending reform."
How's he going to do all that? Let's check Woodcock's website, under the catchy heading "Chan's Plans."
In the section on jobs and the economy, he proposes phasing out the property tax on business equipment. Except the last Legislature already did that.
He wants to reduce workers compensation costs by "limiting litigation." That happened in 1991.
As governor, he'd expand Baldacci's Pine Tree Zones, which offer tax breaks to expanding businesses in distressed areas, to the entire state. But with the exception of Greater Portland, Maine is already one big Pine Tree Zone.
To lower energy costs, he'd encourage the private sector to come up with a solution. Apparently, the business community is just waiting for a little nudge.
The only actual ideas call for instituting the Taxpayers' Bill of Rights, reducing the state's top income-tax rate and providing a tax break for rich people with stock dividends.
When it comes to dealing with healthcare costs, Woodcock would "reform" Medicaid by kicking people off the rolls and making it harder for new patients to join. He'd pay hospitals $400 million in overdue Medicaid bills, although he doesn't say where he'd get the money. He'd reduce regulations on insurance companies, allowing them to refuse to cover people with lots of health problems. Those folks would be thrown into a high-risk pool, where their medical costs would be subsidized by money that would come from the same mystical source as the Medicaid cash. And he'd give speeches on why you shouldn't get sick.
Woodcock would reform state government by setting priorities (although he doesn't say what his might be) and asking legislators to figure out "what is working, what is not and setting priorities." No word on what happens if their priorities are different from his.
His environmental agenda is equally murky. He thinks it's "outrageous" that fish in Maine rivers require health warnings because of high levels of mercury, but he doesn't propose doing anything to reduce mercury emissions. He's against lead paint, but he's also told reporters he wants to do away with "irrelevant environmental tests." He supports "Rivers for everyone," although I don't think there are enough to go around. He's against giving corporations "special rights" to pollute those rivers (or, presumably, to consummate same-sex marriages in them), but wants more compromises between business interests and environmentalists. He'd fight sprawl by reforming policies to "better promote Maine values and lifestyles" and by recognizing that "commercial development is different from residential," whatever that means. He supports the Land for Maine's Future program, but doesn't want to fund it with bond money. Maybe, there'll be some bucks left over from that magic Medicaid fund.
Although Woodcock was a teacher for 27 years, there's nothing in his plans about education.
Woodcock's opponents have been attacking him for allegedly hiding his socially conservative views, claiming he has the same anti-abortion, anti-gay-rights, anti-evolution agenda as the Christian Civic League of Maine. While that's correct, the charges still allow him to pretend he's the aggrieved party and to blather on about attempts to "mislabel me and mislead [voters] about my agenda for Maine."
Whatever that is.
When he's not playing the victim, Woodcock devotes his speeches and writings to discussing the shortcomings of the Baldacci administration (of which there are, admittedly, many). He never gets around to mentioning where he'd get that Medicaid money or how he'd remove mercury from fish or what he'd do to keep people from freezing to death while waiting for the private sector to invent 20-cent-a-gallon heating oil or exactly what his priorities as governor might be.
That's not an accident.
That's the idea.
I've got an idea some of you might like to e-mail me at ishmaelia@gwi.net.
