AUGUSTA, Maine - Democratic legislative candidates rallied at the State House today and promised to deliver jobs that Gov. Paul LePage and minority Republicans refused to support earlier this year. The Democrats cited a recent report that concluded Maine continues to lag behind the rest of the country in job recovery in the post-recession. Republicans disputed the job claims, saying Democrats were unwilling to work with Republicans in the last legislative session on job creation proposals.
The door-to-door campaign for Democratic legislative candidates is moving into high gear with fewer than seven weeks before Election Day. Democratic Assistant House Majority Leader Jeff McCabe says wherever his party's candidates go, they're hearing the same message about the state's anemic record of job creation. The three-term Skowhegan representative says he wishes Republicans would get the message.
"We're listening to our fellow Mainers," McCabe said. "For far too long, our governor has not listened."
Gov. LePage, and his fellow Republicans in the House and Senate who supported his policies, are the biggest deterrent to job creation, according to Maine Democrats. To illustrate this point, McCabe and others point to an August report from the progressive Maine Center for Economic Policy that ranked Maine 43rd among all states in job recovery. The study concluded Maine would need 9,400 jobs to return to pre-recession levels. The center's analysis also showed that 40,000 Mainers are looking for full-time work and can't find it.
During a press event attended by dozens of Democratic legislative candidates, McCabe said the state's jobs dilemma was created, in part, by LePage's repeated vetoes of Democratic proposals for job creation.
"He put ideology over job creation, he used his veto pen to scratch out our chances of economic growth," McCabe said. "We can't afford another four years of failed leadership of Gov. LePage and the Republican legislators who rubber-stamped his agenda."
Democrats hope to not only retain their majorities in the House and Senate but to boost their numbers on Election Day. But there are a number of seats that have been vacated by incumbents because of term limits or personal considerations where either party could claim victory.
In Lewiston, the District 21 state Senate seat long held by Democrat Margaret Craven opened up with her retirement from office. Nate Libby, a first-term state Democratic representative from Lewiston is challenging Republican Patricia Gagne of Lewiston. He says he's hearing the same kind of reports about the state's tough job market.
"They're having too hard of a time to make ends meet and are left to wonder who is looking out for them," Libby said.
Meanwhile, in western Maine's Albany Township, Democrat Callie Pecunies hopes to win the open House District 117 seat against Republican challenger Frances Head, of Bethel. She says the voters she talks with are excited about the region and its potential, but they're also discouraged by stagnant employment.
"Too many are struggling with the lack of job growth in rural areas like ours, where our natural resources are one of the keys to our economic growth," Pecunies said.
But House Republican Leader Ken Fredette says Democrats can't have it both ways. "Maine has been under Democratic legislative control now for nearly 40 years," Fredette said.
Fredette said Democrats never sincerely attempted to collaborate with Republicans during the legislative session. "Unfortunately, Democrats were too focused on attacking Gov. LePage and Republicans so that they could elect Mike Michaud governor, and never truly came to the table in a bipartisan fashion so that we could pass meaningful policy," Fredette said.
Republicans at state party headquarters said Maine actually ranks among the top three states in the nation for employment ratio growth since the recession, and that the Democrats' numbers are flawed because they include the unemployed in the overall analysis.
Republicans also point to a decline in the unemployment rate from 8 percent to 5.6 percent since LePage took office.