55.4° 
Mike Tipping
Creeping Socialism
Submitted by Mike Tipping on Mon, 06/15/2009 - 10:09am.A landmark election last week in Nova Scotia, Maine’s Northeastern neighbor, has sidelined the two historically-dominant political parties and brought a democratic-socialist government to power, a first in the history of Eastern Canada.
Portland Politics
Submitted by Mike Tipping on Thu, 06/04/2009 - 8:41am.There's an election next week that could lead to the creation of a powerful new public office in
Remember, Remember the Third of November
Submitted by Mike Tipping on Tue, 05/26/2009 - 11:10am.In an email sent Thursday, The Maine Marriage Initiative, a group or religious and conservative political organizations led by the Portland Catholic Diocese, announced that supporters should be prepared to begin gathering signatures soon to enact a "people's veto" of Maine's equal marriage legislation.
The email stressed the importance of gathering the signatures in time to make the November ballot.
Snowe Staying Put
Submitted by Mike Tipping on Tue, 05/12/2009 - 12:18pm.In the days since Senator Arlen Specter switched to the Democratic Party, much has been made of the fact that Maine Senators Snowe and Collins appear to be the last of the Senate Republican moderates. Snowe in particular has emerged as a lonely voice arguing for the preservation of the party's more moderate wing.
What I Learned at the Gay Marriage Hearing
Submitted by Mike Tipping on Sat, 04/25/2009 - 8:51am.
The equal marriage supporters are both passionate and very well organized.
A Twittering Congresswoman
Submitted by Mike Tipping on Mon, 03/30/2009 - 2:52pm.Chellie Pingree is the newest member of Maine's congressional delegation. Based on her 74 tweets over the last month, she also seems to be the most technologically savvy, or at least the most obsessive-compulsive.
Immigrants Represent Maine's Future
Submitted by Mike Tipping on Fri, 04/17/2009 - 8:18am.There’s a bigger threat to Maine than even the current state of the economy and the job market. Even if the economy improves quickly, Maine’s slow population growth and aging demographics portend a future of increased costs of social services and a declining workforce to pay for them. We either need all the old folks to move out (I hear Florida is nice) or we need more immigrants.
State Senator Justin Alfond recently submitted a bill that could help.
Whither Maine's Media
Submitted by Mike Tipping on Mon, 03/23/2009 - 8:17am.Joseph Pulitzer once said that a newspaper should have no friends. Maine's papers seem to be doing a great job of fulfilling that dictum lately.
Daily newspapers are the prism through which we view our politics, and for decades have been the source of the public's political institutional memory and the arbiter of what's important in state politics and policy. That may not last much longer.
Mills Looks to 2010
Submitted by Mike Tipping on Sun, 03/15/2009 - 9:07am.An article in the Boston Globe recently explained that "It's early, of course — ridiculously early — for anyone except potential candidates to be thinking about the next presidential race." The writer then went on to discuss why Mitt Romney may have the best chance among the 2012 Republican presidential hopefuls.
Matt Jacobsen for Governor
Submitted by Mike Tipping on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 9:05am.If you give Matt Jacobson the job of governor, he'll work to get you a job as a cruise ship captain, or maybe a wind energy technician or a railroad conductor. That's the message I got from digesting a host of interviews with Maine's first Republican gubernatorial hopeful after he announced the formation of an exploratory committee last week.
