Chellie Pingree for Congress

Legitimizing arrogance

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 20:59:28 -0500

Today Maine Congressmen Tom Allen and Mike Michaud voted against the FISA bill that the House Leadership endorsed -- a bill that not only gives retroactive immunity to the telecom corporations Verizon, ATT&T and others for illegal wiretapping, but makes it unlikely we will ever even know who were the lawbreakers and who were the victims. I'm proud that our two Democratic Representatives stood up against the powerful telecom lobbies and said no. Maine has tough privacy laws, which is why the Maine Civil Liberties Union helped 22 Mainers take their case to our state's Public Utilities Commission (PUC) demanding to know whether or not Verizon had been letting the Bush Administration tap their phones or read their email. Verizon's response -- that they hadn't engaged in wiretapping as part of a "fishing expedition" -- had a definite non-denial-denial sound to it. When the PUC demanded the company swear to the truthfulness of what they were saying in their press releases, the Bush Administration leapt into the fray, suing the Maine Public Utilities Commission to prevent them from pursuing the matter. It would violate state secrets for these Mainers to know whether their phones were tapped or their email was read, the Administration said. I never thought I'd see the day when the U.S. government could listen in on phone conversations or read private mail without first obtaining a warrant from a court. That sounds more like something that happened in the Soviet Union. But in a double sleight of hand, not only does this new legislation say such unmonitored surveillance of American citizens is permitted, it blocks any opportunity to test the premise in the courts. The Administration says "Nothing to see here folks. We're just keeping you safe. Go on home." And then slams the courtroom doors in our face. Why would the House -- which has the responsibility for enforcing oversight of the administration's activities, and which earlier this year passed a much better bill that didn't immunize the telecoms -- vote to legitimize that arrogant behavior? This action makes it all the more difficult, if not impossible, for any of us to find out the extent of the Administration's illegal spying. (Oh, wait. The new bill says it's not illegal if the President says it's not illegal. That's in there, too.) When Congressmen Tom Allen and Mike Michaud were sworn in, they took this oath: _I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic._ Clearly, they took that oath seriously. I am running for Congress to fill the seat Tom is giving up as he challenges Susan Collins for the Senate. If I am fortunate enough to be elected this fall, I will remember their courage and independence when I take that same oath. Cross-posted at "Turn Maine Blue":http://www.turnmaineblue.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1340, "Open Left":http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=6498, and "Huffington Post":http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chellie-pingree/legitimizing-arrogance_b_108407.html.

Chellie opposes offshore drilling for oil

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:47:51 -0500

Chellie was on WGAN this morning. Here's what she said:

It's Pingree vs. Summers

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:24:21 -0500

June 11, 2008 _Portland Press Herald_ by Kevin Wack. **Out of a field of six, a clear winner emerges among Democrats.** Chellie Pingree reacts to applause from supporters at the Porthole restaurant in Portland on Tuesday. (Derek Davis/Staff Photographer)

Chellie Pingree of North Haven won a six-way race Tuesday for the Democratic nomination to run for the U.S. House in Maine's 1st Congressional District. With 57 percent of precincts voting, Pingree, a former Senate majority leader who later served as national chair of Common Cause, had 45 percent of the vote while Adam Cote, a Portland lawyer and Iraq War veteran, had 26 percent. Michael Brennan of Portland was third at 12 percent, followed by Ethan Strimling, a Portland state senator, at 11 percent. York County District Attorney Mark Lawrence and Augusta pediatrician Steve Meister placed a distant fifth and sixth, respectively. "We had five hardworking opponents it's great to be the winner in that field," Pingree said in a speech to supporters at the Porthole restaurant in Portland. The winner in the Democratic primary will face Republican Charlie Summers of Scarborough in the Nov. 4 general election. Summers, a former aide to Sen. Olympia Snowe, defeated Eliot businessman Dean Scontras with 59 percent of the vote. The District 1 seat is being vacated by Democratic Rep. Tom Allen, who is running against GOP Sen. Susan Collins. The early returns showed that Pingree held leads in Cumberland, Knox, Sagadahoc and Kennebec counties, while Cote led in his native York County. Strimling vowed to campaign for Pingree in November. "She will be a great standard-bearer for us," Strimling said. Brennan said that he was proud of the campaign he ran. "We were outspent 5 to 1 by Chellie," he said. "I think we've shown in this campaign that ideas do make a difference." Lawrence, who collected just 5 percent of the vote, said it had been a disappointing night, but said that Pingree would make a great member of Congress. "My view is that Democrats congealed behind one person," Lawrence said, "and I believe that's going to be Chellie Pingree." Five of the six Democratic candidates gathered Tuesday night in Portland, which is near the center of a congressional district that includes much of southern, coastal and central Maine. Pingree, a former U.S. Senate candidate, had declared herself the race's front-runner and raised the most money in the Democratic campaign, collecting $1.36 million, according to the latest finance reports. She was followed by Strimling at $613,000; Cote at $553,000; Lawrence with $445,000; Brennan at $243,000; and Meister with $108,000. Over the course of the race, which began last year, the six candidates raised a total of $3.86 million, according to the latest available totals from the Federal Election Commission. Cote, a Sanford native making his first run for office, spent Tuesday at polling places in Kennebec County before moving to York County in the afternoon. Cote was expected to arrive on Tuesday night at a campaign party in the ballroom of the Eastland Park Hotel in Portland. Strimling greeted supporters on Tuesday evening at Bull Feeney's, a pub in the city's Old Port. Brennan, a former state lawmaker from Portland, spent the day greeting voters in and near his base of support in Portland. Lawrence, the district attorney in York County, spent much of his day greeting voters in his home county, hitting polling places in York, Wells and Kennebunk, and voting near his home in South Berwick. Meister, a Winthrop pediatrician, spent part of his day at polling places in his hometown and in nearby Augusta. The winner of the tightly contested Democratic race will have some built-in advantages going into the general-election campaign. Voter registration totals from earlier this year showed that Democrats outnumbered Republicans in the 1st Congressional District by at least 23,000. In the 2004 presidential election, the district voted for John Kerry over George W. Bush, 55 percent to 43 percent. Staff Writer Elbert Aull contributed to this report. Staff Writer Kevin Wack can be contacted at 791-6365 or at: kwack@pressherald.com "**LINK TO ARTICLE**":http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=193377&ac=PHnws

Summers, Pingree win in 1st District

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:29:48 -0500

June 11, 2008 _Bangor Daily News_ by Walter Griffin. Democrat Chellie Pingree and Republican Charles Summers held commanding leads late Tuesday night in the primaries for Maine's 1st Congressional District seat and were headed toward winning their parties' nomination. With 473 of 615 precincts reporting, Pingree had polled 17,643 votes, or 44 percent, on the Democratic side and Summers had tallied 14,610, or 60 percent, on the Republican side. Trailing Pingree were Adam Cote with 10,794 votes, or 27 percent, Michael Brennan with 4,715 votes, Ethan Strimling with 4,511, Mark Lawrence with 1,880 and Dr. Steve Meister with 428. Democrat Chellie Pingree is overwhelmed by her supporters Tuesday night at her headquarters in Portland. Pingree defeated five other Democrats in Maine's 1st Congressional District primary. (AP/Pat Wellenbach)
Trailing Summers on the Republican ballot was Peter C. "Dean" Scontras with 9,801 votes, or 40 percent. Pingree, 53, of North Haven pulled large margins from Cumberland County, where she captured 7,785 votes to Cote's 4,465, and Knox County, where she polled 2,056 votes to Cote's 279. She was leading Lincoln County by 973-270, Kennebec County by 1,142 to 1,113, and Sagadahoc County by 701-221. Cote was winning his home base of York County by 2,271 votes to Pingree's 1,814. Pingree had been considered the favorite in the race since she announced her candidacy last year. She operated businesses on the island for more than two decades, served eight years in the Maine Senate, mounted a hard-fought though unsuccessful run against Sen. Susan Collins in 2002 and most recently served as president and chief executive officer of the Washington, D.C., advocacy group Common Cause. As of the most recent reporting deadline, Pingree had raised more than $1.1 million for her campaign. Newcomer Cote, 35, of Sanford has reported $465,000 in contributions, a number of which came from Republican donors. He was viewed by many as the most moderate candidate among the Democrats. He changed his registration from Democrat to Republican in 2000 to vote for presidential candidate John McCain and changed back last year shortly before filing his nomination papers. Cote, a graduate of Colby College, is a lawyer with the Portland firm Pierce-Atwood and also serves as a staff judge advocate for the Maine Army National Guard. He spent a year serving with the Army in Iraq and was present in the mess hall during a suicide bomb attack that killed and wounded more than 100 soldiers. Brennan, 55, a state senator from Portland, is a social worker and currently works as a policy associate at the Muskie School of Public Service, where he directs projects related to child welfare, mental health and public policy. He also is an adjunct faculty member at the University of New England. Strimling, 40, is a state senator from Portland who gave up his seat to run for Congress. He is a native of New York City and attended the University of Maine. A strong advocate for liberal issues, Strimling has been involved with the Maine People's Alliance and has served as executive director of Portland West for the past decade. Lawrence, 49, of Kittery is district attorney for York County. The son of a Portsmouth Naval Shipyard worker, Lawrence worked his way through Bowdoin College and the University of Maine School of Law as a lobsterman and in local factories. Meister, 53, of Portland, the only physician in the race, received his medical degree from Tufts University School of Medicine and has been a staff physician at Maine Medical Center since 1996. Before that, Meister served as a clinical professor at Georgetown University's department of pediatrics in Washington, D.C., and as the head of pediatric care and director of child abuse evaluation at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego, Calif. He has published a number of papers and is a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Meister served with the U.S. Marines during the first Gulf War and directed an emergency room at a field hospital at the Kuwait border. On the Republican side, Summers, 48, of Scarborough returned from serving with the Navy in Iraq last month and also had the advantage of being well-known in the district. Summers moved to Maine in 1982 after finishing college in Illinois. He held jobs in the hospitality industry in Bangor and South Portland and ran a small business in Biddeford. He ran successfully for the Maine Senate when he captured a historically Democratic seat representing the Old Orchard-Saco area in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He has worked as an aide to Sen. Olympia Snowe and as New England regional administrator for the Small Business Administration. He has served in the Naval Reserve for the past 13 years. Scontras, 38, an Eliot businessman, grew up in Kittery, where he starred on the local high school football team and played on a partial scholarship for the University of Maine team that contested the national championship. Scontras attended graduate school in Washington, D.C. He worked with various technical companies before moving back to Maine "for the quality of life" and rejoining his extended family in southern Maine. Scontras describes himself as a strong family man and one proud of his Greek heritage. "**LINK TO ARTICLE**":http://bangornews.com/news/t/news.aspx?articleid=165512&zoneid=164

Thank you.

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 01:56:41 -0500

Dear Friends, Today we have a victory to celebrate, a moment to savor, and then an exciting campaign ahead of us. And I have a lot to be thankful for. Thank you for all you did in this campaign. I am grateful to all of you who volunteered in these weeks and months, to my team, and everyone in the First District who has honored me with their support. I also want to say thank you to my opponents -- Mike Brennan, Adam Cote, Mark Lawrence, Steve Meister, and Ethan Strimling. I know the sacrifices that running for office entails, and I appreciate the commitment, the energy, and the ideas they brought to the race. In the five months ahead, we have a lot of work to do, but I'm looking forward to continuing the campaign with an even larger group of Maine voters. I'm eager to continue this essential conversation about the future of our country, and I hope that one day soon we'll look back and say 2008 was the year we brought real significant change to America, starting with true universal health care; an end to the war in Iraq; and economic, energy, and environmental policies that get our country back on the right track. Again, thank you for joining this campaign and for your support. All my best,

Election Day in Maine

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 09:12:06 -0500

Election Day

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 06:37:54 -0500

Throughout this entire campaign, you've been right there beside me. This is the most important election of our lifetimes, and I am so excited about the change we can make together -- but first, we've got to win this primary! I've got three simple yet important requests for you:

Monday a.m. -- BIW South Gate

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:34:59 -0500

Endorsements

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 07:33:16 -0500

You can find the list of public supporters "**here**":http://chelliepingree.com/chellie/endorsements.html or click "read more."

A Bath Iron Works start to the day!

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 06:45:25 -0500

6:00 a.m. -- [posted by Jackie] We met Charlie Finn and Bill Gilson, long time union activists, at BIW at the south gate this morning at 6:00! Chellie, my son Dan, who drove, and I enjoyed the gorgeous morning scenery on the ride up to Bath. We made a quick stop for coffee in Brunswick to ensure we were all awake. Willy joined us and we all greeted the hundreds of BIW employees on morning shift as they streamed into the Yard. I have done this stop many times in the past. This visit, I was particularly pleased to see the warmth and enthusiasm with which workers greeted Chellie. They reached out for the pamphlets, and 500 pieces disappeared quickly. They sought her out, veering from their routine path to say "hello," "good luck," or "I've already voted for you!" Many people stopped to talk with Chellie about the high cost of gas, some expressing concern about next winter. It was a terrific way to jump start the next-to-last day of campaigning.

Sunday a.m. -- busy headquarters

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 12:25:24 -0500

Sunday a.m. -- So. Portland is bustling

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 12:00:36 -0500

Phones are ringing all over the county

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 21:11:26 -0500

8:30 P.M. -- I just got home from delivering my last set of call sheets to volunteers. In this final weekend before the primary, like everyone in the campaign, I've added extra tasks to my regular job of online communications director -- in my case, organizing GOTV for Lincoln County. I blanched when I first heard how many phone calls we needed to make but today I delivered call sheets to an amazing 50 or so volunteers from all parts of Lincoln County. As I drove home, I thought about how volunteering on a campaign builds a community. Today, as I met with these supporters in coffee shops, church parking lots, in their backyards, in their shops, and at their back doors, I heard about what motivated them to spend some of their precious weekend making phone calls for Chellie.

Classic Maine campaign stop

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 19:41:53 -0500

3:00 P.M. -- Now here's a classic campaign stop: the Freeport dump, with my son Asa, daughter Cecily, and Wayne Hollingworth. In Freeport, which is usually full of tourists and shoppers from all over the world, people are worried that the high price of gas may have a chilling effect on the tourist season, "The trains can't get up here soon enough," someone said to me. High energy prices = buy local. A number of people took campaign signs and buttons home and a surprising number of them said they had already voted for me. Maine's no-excuse absentee and early voting rules make voting a lot more convenient for many people, and contribute to Maine's record of high voter turnout.

OOB with Bill

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 19:39:01 -0500

1:00 P.M. -- We met up with Bill Bickford in Old Orchard Beach, walking Main Street and talking to all the people who worked in all of those businesses, including some who took a campaign sign to put in their windows. It was nice to drop into Hogan's Variety to visit with State Rep. George Hogan and his wife at their store. In Old Orchard a few people seemed to think that the season was getting off to a slow start but were hopefully looking forward to business picking up after school gets out.