He lives in South Berwick.  As with all our candidates, our goal is to allow candidates to speak for him or herself on the issues.  Here, then, is Mark Lawrence on the issues:

Iraq and the War on Terror: I opposed the war in Iraq from the start, and I firmly believe that we have to end the war now.  I don’t think you can separate the war in Iraq from the fight against terrorism.  The war has had a negative effect on our war on terror.  I view terrorism as nothing less than international organized crime.  Speaking as a District Attorney, I have worked against domestic organized crime, and attended many conferences on the subject.  The war on terror must be fought in a similar way to our fight against domestic organized crime, except it will more strongly depend on good international relationships to achieve our goals.  We have to conduct the fight on many different levels, including stopping the financial ability to wage terrorism by working with governments and banks, and we have to be able to arrest individual people directly.  You don’t fight terrorism through a conventional war.  Going into Iraq was one of the worst foreign policy mistakes we made in last 100 years.

Energy and global warming: Solar energy is still something we make poor use of.  We make very little, but even other northeren nations do far better.  We should look at the example of Germany, for instance.  Other alternatives to oil have a much lower impact to the environment, as well as impact to our international relations.  The underlying issue is that we have to decrease energy consumption.  We have to actively promote energy conservation.  This is an active role for government to take in a variety of ways, such as tax incentives, and other methods.  Unless this country rapidly diminishes need for carbon fuels, there will be grave consequences in the next few years, possibly irreversible ones. 

Global warming is the most serious and pressing issue of our time.  Whatever decisions we make in the next two to four years will dramatically shape the next 20 - 40 years. If we as a country do not take a major leadership role in changing our policies and combating global warming, we will see irreversible consequences that will dramatically change our planet and costs we face as a society.

Wind power is certainly something worth studying and exploring.  I am very concerned about trend in reexamining nuclear energy … that is a dangerous direction. The underlying issue is to change our energy consumption patterns ... automobiles, design of homes and businesses, all different types of aspects.  York County Courthouse recently put in geothermal system.  It keeps the building at a fairly constant temperature, and the energy needed to increase and decrease temperature is dramatically lower. 

Energy for us has become too easy and too cheap.  We haven’t factored in environmental consequences to our choices.  Unless we change very rapidly, going to face a seriously impacted future. CAFE standards is one of the issues we need to address.  To get from where we are now and where we need to go we need to take dramatic steps in a short period of time.  A radical change in Congress ... and the White House ... will be needed to get there.  We need to sweep in a different perspective in Congress ... take on special interests and do what we need to do to address these pressing issues.

Health care:  We cannot afford to continue the piecemeal approach.  We need to make a dramatic change… the U.S. is the only industrialized country that does not have a national health care system … it is time for the U.S. to adopt a national health care system.  It is something we need to do.  We have spent a lot of energy working on an incremental approach.  For instance, we did many things to provide insurance for children and people at risk for our society, but the time has come to have universal health care under a national system.  I would prefer to see a single payer system.  This makes the most efficient use of the structure of the system.  A single-payer plan puts direct input and direct control over the decision-making process in the hands of providers and consumers.  For-profit models do not work in health care and health care decisions.  There is a role for profit-driven companies ... for instance, developing new processes and new equipment, but health care providing has to be done in non-profit manner. 

Social Security:  Social Security is a fundamental part of our American safety net system.  My mother and father’s family came through the Depression and lost everything.  The only thing that saved my grandmother from poverty, around the time my grandfather died, was Social Security.  We cannot afford to let the system be destroyed.  Take privatization off table.  Privatization will not save the system. Social Secuirty was meant to be a safety net, to be the part of everybody’s retirement plan that is meant to always be there.  That must be a promise between the government and the people. 

Fiscal responsibility: The Bush administration passed a huge wealth shift away from middle class to the wealthiest people in the country … the extremely small percentage of the most wealthy in the country.  At the same time, we went into Iraq, which is a failed foreign policy strategy.  While the trend in 90s toward resolving budget deficit, under this administration we have gone back to irresponsible tax cuts and spending. Unless we return toward fiscal responsibility toward Clinton, we will be jeopardizing Social Security and the safety net.  Step one … exercise fiscal responsibility. 

Step two ... repeal aspects of Bush tax cut.  These cuts transferred wealth from the middle class to wealthiest one percent of the population.  Use that to establish fiscal responsibility, stabilize the economy so we can address the coming Social Security shortfall. 

I am not opposed to tax cuts.  Even the Bush administration pushed through tax cuts that were good for America, including the adoption tax credit, and the education tax credit. 

Things that happened in the last eight years need to be addressed… the housing bubble is one of them.  Certain  lending practices were not in the best interests of the nation.  Individuals who bought homes and legitimately got in over their heads because of these bad practices should be given the opportunity to refinance under conditions that will allow them to keep their homes.   That number is much larger than Bush administration has said.  It’s funny, Democrats are often thought of as great spenders … in recent years Democrats have exercised much greater restraint than Republicans have.

Consumer safety: We need to reassert the public’s role in guaranteeing consumer safety.  Congress should be pushing for stronger consumer safety.  Safety is one of the basic fundamental pillars that government should provide.  The average consumer has no ability to know what are the dangers of products.  “Let the Buyer Beware” is a dangerous and irresponsible public policy. Government is an extension of community; we create things in government that we cannot do as individuals.  No individual can know whether every single child’s toy is safe, but we as a society can get together and test and know. 
Free trade and Fair trade:  There is a lot of talk about free trade.  Instead, the debate should be about ‘fair trade’. It is not fair trade to allow a product to be produced in another country that couldn’t be produced here because we have stronger safety standards.  We need to fight for fair trade. 

Education:  I grew up in Kittery … both my parents’ families lost everything during the Depression, so neither one had college educations, but I remember as a child my mother sitting at the table on my dad’s payday with an accordion file. In each slot of accordion file, she would put in so much for groceries, rent, and later the mortgage.  But there was always an slot  in the back for our education.  We would have the ability to go wherever our ability would take us.  None of us did our parents the favor of going to inexpensive public schools!  We all went to expensive private colleges.  The day I graduated, I thought was the happiest day of my parents’ life.  They showed up for my graduation from Bowdoin in a typical Maine car ... sheet metal over rust spots so it would pass the inspection … with four college stickers in the window ... for me and my three brothers.  My father earned $28,000 at the shipyard, and at the time, Bowdoin cost $7,000 per year.  The Maine University System cost less than half that.  Today, a shipyard worker earns  $55,000 and private school costs $50,000, and University of Maine costs about $20,000 per year.  We have seen the ability of average Maine families to afford that kind of opportunity ... to afford that kind of dream  ... for their children disappearing.  Government has the role to restore the ability for anyone to get an education.  There is no reason why teachers cannot get forgiveness for student loan debt.  Or forgiveness for public service.  When we were in college, our loans had interest rates of 2 - 3%, and were subsidized by the government.  Today, there are loans charge 7 - 8%, run by private companies.

No Child Left Behind has been a disaster.  We have regimented and controlled the teaching of children so much that teachers are losing their ability to teach … they are simply teaching for the test.  NCLB was designed for a system in Texas that has the worst schools in country.  The same system in Maine, which had some of the best, has had disastrous consequences.  There has been a loss of creativity.  We have to put teaching back in the hands of the educators.  Special education pitted communities against each other.  The federal government has to pay its full 40% for special education.  They have not paid any more than 17% - ever.