In the weeks to come, we will present the results of our interviews with all the candidates for the First Congressional seat, and then for the Senate seat in contention.  As in the past, our goal is to let each candidate speak for him or herself, and let the voters decide, based on the issues.  Here, then, is Chellie Pingree on the issues.

Iraq:  When I ran for Senate in 2002, it was a bad election cycle to be against the war.  I was one of a small handful of people who ran opposed to the impending war. None of us won election that year. But it was right after we were attacked, and Bush did everything possible to conflate the attack with his desire to attack Iraq, and people weren’t ready to hear the anti-war message.  It was the wrong thing to do.  It was misguided.  It damaged our relationships around the world. 

Now, we are the problem.  We have to remove our troops.  Not only because they are being slaughtered in a civil war, but also because our presence is causing more harm than good. We have to remove funding.  No question about it.  Of course, there has to be a reasonable timeline for withdrawal.

For the past six years, I have worked with Common Cause, and we have been looking at the process by which we were led to war…the no-bid contracts …the Vice-President’s relationship with Halliburton …the question of cui bono … who benefited from this war?

Today, America is a different country than it was in 2002.  Maine is angry about the war, and its progress, and rightly so. Mainers are frustrated about how much money was wasted in this fiasco.

The War on Terror: The mistakes we made were legion. Bush and his administration made it clear that even as voices were raised for a diplomatic solution, that was not how he was going to handle this situation. We became an aggressor nation with a cowboy mentality.  This caused the world to lose faith in us as a moral leader.  The very idea that this administration is even considering aggression against Iran is unthinkable. We need to go back to diplomacy as a first resort, and improve our reputation around the world.

Oil:  Of course, the underlying tension in these wars of choice are the oil interests of the United States.  We need to be honest with the American public about the extent of our interests in the middle east and ask them if a war is an acceptable  action to take for our dependence on foreign oil. We must become less dependent on oil, period. During the energy crisis in the 1970’s, Americans got on board very quickly.  Windmills went up, solar panels and solar hot water heaters went up on homes, people drove smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.  Then, the “crisis” ended and we went back to business as usual. It was a missed opportunity for us.  In the end, it came  down to political will. And we missed an opportunity to be a world leader.  Today, the Prius is the best selling hybrid car, not the Focus.

Global warming and carbon emissions:  For years, Republicans have been hammering us with their “no global warming” sales pitch.  Today, there is absolute certainty that the climate is changing, and human activity is changing it. I went to the College of the Atlantic, and I am pleasantly surprised that there is still such an interest in organic certification. Mainers are concerned about toxins in food, and issues of land use, farming, clean water. We’ve been able to keep small farms going, although a lot of land has been lost to agribusiness, and because box stores like Walmart want to import food from places like China, where those protections  are nonexistent.

There should be a lot of fear about global warming … it is real and a present danger.  We have to do something about it now. Our failure to sign the Kyoto accords is just another indication that the world no longer looks up to us as a moral authority on so many issues. Our international reputation has been destroyed. In China, they are already talking about decreasing their carbon emissions by 30%.  The need is there, and they just do it.

Health care:  It really comes down to how we spend our resources.  Every other industrialized nation on Earth has some sort of universal health care coverage for its citizens. And universal health care will be better for the economy in the long run. All that remains to be discussed is the form that will take.  But we have so many special interests – insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies … trying to keep Americans afraid of universal health care, and spending big bucks to keep Congress from passing health care legislation, that it hasn’t happened.  I have a proven record in health care.  When I was in the legislature, I authored the Maine RX bill, which lowered prescription costs for seniors.

Alternative  energy:  Obviously, alternative energies are going to have to be part of our future, both in Maine and in the United States.  While nuclear has had its problems, it needs to be revisited thoughtfully, looking at what people in the rest of the world are doing.  As far as windmills and solar energy are concerned, that makes perfect sense.  The NIMBY attitude  that keeps people from wanting to see windmills for no other reason than they paid a lot of money for a house and don’t like the view has to go by the wayside. Of course, we need to protect  our special spaces … and we will. But once we find the right sites, we need to expedite the process of getting those mills on the hillsides.  We also have to consider siting windmills offshore. Energy has to be a thoughtful process, and all the risks and benefits have to be considered. Take ethanol from corn.  If we make ethanol out of corn, and we have to fertilize the corn with petroleum based fertilizers, and it takes more energy to make it than we get out of it, that’s not a good use of our resource. 

Social Security/Medicare: Privatization benefits those who make money from the handling of the capital, rather than the people who depend on Social Security to make ends meet. Before Social Security, seniors lived in poverty … that’s why it was enacted. There was no safety net.  Now, there is something guaranteed … even if it’s not enough to live on … and that has to be protected.  Again, it comes down to how we expend our resources. We can do no less for our seniors.  I am a zealous supporter of Social Security and Medicare.

Education:  Education is mostly a state, rather than federal issue, but my first elected office was that of school board member, and I can tell you, nothing I have done since has been as hard as that!  Maine has been hurt by not receiving federal aid, but schools still top our budget.  We are 38th of 50 in per capita income, and the average  young person graduating from the University of Maine leaves school owing about $11,000. No wonder they have to leave the state afterwards! We still have no additional funding for community colleges, and that is desperately needed.  We need to fully fund Head Start, and preschool for younger children, and require that the federal government pay its target share of special education funding.