MAINE, USA — Our analysts this week are former Republican state senator Phil Harriman and former state senator and mayor of Portland, Democrat Ethan Strimling.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer will retire at end of the court's current term. President Joe Biden says he will nominate a Black woman to fill the vacancy.
"It's a great opportunity for Joe Biden to put some more balance on the Supreme Court," said Ethan Strimling, adding we "can debate who are the best Black women judges across the country that should be on the court. Imagine that, we've never had that debate in America, now we're going to."
Phil Harriman said he believes Biden should simply have promised to nominate the most qualified candidate, and when the pick is announced, "and she happens to be a woman of color, I think that would have fired up the base. Now it's just a matter of him checking the box on a campaign promise."
The effort to get the "Pine Tree Power" question on the statewide ballot is being put on hold until next year. This is the proposal to force the sale of Central Maine Power and Versant to a new consumer-owned utility.
Harriman thinks organizers may have failed to get enough people in the field to gather signatures, and that perhaps Maine voters are not enthusiastic about the proposal. He said, "Either way, the signal is not a good one, and it's gonna be even more difficult to get the signatures going forward."
Strimling agreed that mounting this campaign in 2023 instead of this year is less than ideal. But he said there are plenty of volunteers and ample enthusiasm for the idea. He feels too much time was spent on trying to get a bill through the legislature, an idea that he said was doomed to fail because Gov. Janet Mills would never have signed it into law.
He said, "If they'd started their efforts on the ground earlier they might have been able to get there" this year.
Republicans are looking to take back control in Augusta, and this past week, the party introduced their candidates for Maine senate seats.
Strimling said these are largely "recycled candidates," much like former Gov. Paul LePage seeking another term, and former Congressman Bruce Poliquin trying to recapture his old seat in the second district. Of the state senate candidates, Strimling said, "These are some candidates who opposed gay marriage, who opposed equal rights for women, this is such a retrograde slate."
But Harriman said the Republican party is right to get organized early in the cycle for a change.
"The number one thing you need to do is to have candidates," he said. "We will hear more from the Democrats about the campaign priorities of these candidates, but they are in place."
Harriman added, "If next month we get introduced to 151 house candidates, that's gonna be a clear signal that the Republican Party is communicating and organized and prepared to campaign to win in November."
Our analysts also discussed the political impact of Maine's unemployment rate, the failure to override the veto of a bill to allow farmworkers to unionize, former Rep. Bruce Poliquin's trip to the border with Mexico, and projections for what Mills will have to say in her State of the State address on February 10th.
Political Brew airs Sundays on the NEWS CENTER Maine Morning Report.