Happy Birthday, my band of brothers

 Happy birthday to all the Marines out there; those who are no longer with us, those who are retired, those who are currently serving and those who will some day serve.  But most especially a great big oooh rah, Semper Fi and a toast with my glass of scotch to those very special Marines who I had the great privilege to know and become friends with, who welcomed me into this very special group with open arms and who I still have a special bond with to this day.  You have some idea, I know, how it feels for me to be one of you but let me just say that feeling resides in a place in my heart and soul that no one else has ever entered.


Now enough of the mushy stuff and back to the scotch, a gentleman's drink offered in friendship and camaraderie, cheers as I share with you this video message from the Commandant of the Marine Corps.

I don't know whether, if you're not a Marine, that brings an ear-to-ear smile coupled with a tear like it does this Marine but I suspect it does.  But there is another feeling that only we feel.  Now, I never served in combat and would never act like I know what it feels like but I do feel like I'm there with them and I "bleed" when they bleed.
One final thing, since I'm reminded of this watching that video and being a proud native of the State of Maine, is to give a toast and an ooh rah to the fine people of Bangor who welcome all those troops, every one of them, when they arrive back home.
I would encourage you to leave the name of a fallen Marine in the comments, like a permanent honor roll.

In Support of Unions

I can honestly say there was a time when I thought labor unions had worn out their usefulness because they were cocky and arrogant and too powerful.  Well, now that pendulum has swung drastically in the other direction and hopefully organized labor has learned from this.
Did unions go too far sometimes and go after worker rights at the expense of fairness and reason?  Yes.
Have there been union employees who have rested on their laurels and taken advantage of that system to get much more than they deserved?  Absolutely.
Have there been workers who should have been fired the first time for an offense but yet got three more bites at the apple because they were part of a union?  True again.
But if you think for one moment that you're not much, much better off today because of the sacrifice of union organizers and workers, you're the fool those who are trying to take away the right to organize hope you are.
I know it's easy to say things that sound purely American, like he who works hardest and smartest will get ahead and unions keep that from happening.  Well, you forget your history.  Before organized labor you weren't paid nearly what you were worth.  It mattered not if you were twice as good as the person next to you; you both got paid the same, next to nothing.  All of the things we take for granted in the workplace these days are there because of the sacrifices of labor unions -- word day length, breaks, benefits, child labor laws, you name it.
Now you have people on the right trying to pit you against your fellow worker in the middle class, getting you to believe that his decent wage because he's a member of a union is somehow unfair.  Look, all the while that you're believing that nonsense, the average standard of living of the working person has stayed the same, at the same time the monied interests in this country are giving more and more breaks to the people who are trying to take your rights away.  How foolish can you be not to see what is really going on?
More and more people are falling out of the middle class into poverty, more and more of us are accumulating insufferable debt that our wages can't pay, the jobs that are available don't pay a decent wage.  Your friend the union worker is not who's to blame for the fact that in real terms you make less than you used to; it's the fat cats who pay lobbyists to buy politicians who lie to you to get you to perpetuate a system that benefits those at the top and steals the rest of us blind.
And congratulations to the people of Ohio for fighting back and winning last night.

What a great day to vote

Todd

It almost felt like a summer's day when Todd and I struck out for the Town Hall to vote today.  They wouldn't let me register Todd...something about concerns over me influencing his vote.  I wonder why?
But the point of my post today is just to simply tell you how good it feels every time I go to vote (and to me it's a much more enjoyable and personal thing to do in person) because of what it means to be able to do this, and to also mention a few of the voting obstacles and restrictions of that freedom that we as a country have overcome simply by getting out there and exercising that most precious of all rights.
This ties in to Question One that we are voting on here in Maine.  Voting yes would overturn a law the Legislature enacted requiring people to register at least two days before voting day.  I can tell you that that would have impacted yours truly today because I moved less than a year ago.  Under the new law I would have had to make two trips, one of them completely unnecessary, just to be able to exercise my right to vote as a United States citizen and a resident of the State of Maine.  The more difficult they make it for you to be able to vote, the harder it is for you to use your vote to keep them under control.  Don't EVER let them start because it's always been difficult for some reason, here in the Land of the Free, to ensure that we all have our rights.

A couple of things that I am not quite old enough to have experienced but my mother, just one generation older than myself, did experience; and those things are:  You used to have to be a land owner before you were eligible to register to vote and there used to be such things as poll taxes, having to pay to exercise your rights.  Now why do you think those things were in place?  So that the wealthy would have control and the ability to yield power over those who were not so fortunate.  It is no different with Question One; they want to be able to keep the undesirables from voting, mostly because those undesirables tend to vote differently than those who want to restrict voting rights.
Let us also not forget that it was not all that long ago that certain segments, shall we say, of our society, even though they were citizens, did not have the right to vote and, therefore, were not fully vested in our democratic system; those people being women and people of color.   So just remember that the right to vote is precious and it is what gives all of us the power to not be controlled by the few.  They are always trying to weaken us; example being trying to restrict the rights of workers to organize.  They have the power of money, therefore influence; our power is in numbers and they know that.  Don't let them fool you into thinking it's in your interest to have the rights of individuals restricted.

Postscript:  After voting, Todd and I drove over to the Maine Store for a breakfast sandwich, personally made for yours truly by my cousin.  Yes, Todd got a smidge.  And we said hi to Unc and Auntie as well.

Second Postscript:  I'm lucky that I didn't have to drive back home before registering.  You need to have something with you that says you live in the town you're registering in.  Well, my driver's license isn't up for renewal, so it has my old address; and if I had remembered to bring a copy of a bill with my address on it, I would've been hard pressed to find one since I pay all my bills online and have gone paperless.  Luckily, I had already registered my car in town and they were able to verify that, saving me a trip home to look for something with my address on it.

Repeat the truth (over and over again)

Unfortunately in this echo-chambered modern world, it is very easy for lies to be layered upon lies and built into a seemingly-reasonable truth.  This is done over and over again by those who are always willing to put their self interests above the common good.  They are also cowards unwilling to stand up for their mistakes and take their medicine.  It's much easier to go to their issue-friendly echo chamber and say whatever they want to say because they know it will be supported by more lies and more lies, and believed by those who want to believe their side, until it becomes this massive entanglement of lies, half-truths, lies of omission and cherry-picked facts that not even the smartest and most dedicated person could untangle it.
It also means that it's very difficult to counter this nightmare with simple truth.  Put forth the truth in the form of facts and they'll counter-offer their own cherry picked facts.  They're willing to go further than you because they have more on the line -- their character is at stake -- whereas all you have going for you is truth; and that's a heavy, burdensome thing to carry around.  It gets very tiresome banging your head against the wall; doesn't it?  It seems as though they'll never get it.

This excellent article by Barry Ritholtz in the Washington Post, "What caused the financial crisis? The Big Lie goes viral," attempts to fight back against that echo chamber on the topic of what caused the financial crisis of a couple years ago.  You can sense his frustration in having to point out the same facts yet again that everyone should already know (and probably do if they were willing to examine it honestly.)
This political cartoon is a good illustration (pun intended) of the point I'm trying to make.  One complete segment of the country still doesn't realize this is the truth because so many out there don't want them to know who really ran up the deficit.

Every day we're being told by one segment of society that the people protesting in the Occupy Movement want a handout, when the reality is simply that they want to no longer be robbed by those in power; that they just want a more level playing field.  And what frustrates us so much is that we don't understand how a significant percentage of people are still being taken advantage of because they still don't want to believe their side has lied to them and stolen from them.  It also means they would have to admit that they've been complicit to some extent by continually voting for people who've made this possible and by echoing their lies.


So we'll just have to keep hammering the truth back at them until MAYBE some day we get back to a country that's more open to truth and fairness, instead of being interested in their side winning no matter the cost.

Vote Yes on Question 1

It shows just how far to the right the Republican Party has moved in 40 years when you consider the law that gives Mainers the right to register and vote on election day was sponsored by the Republican-controlled Maine Legislature in 1973 and that now it's a vastly different Republican-controlled Legislature that threw that right aside last year, using the fear of imaginary threats to the system in so doing.  (Have you ever noticed that there's seemingly always fear behind their tactics?  Why?  To mask their true motives...POWER.)
Just recently in ads bought and paid for by out-of-state interests and money, they're using the term "election ethics law," which is a term nonexistent in the law passed last year nor found anywhere in the minutes of the debates surrounding its passage, to try to define the need for suppressing voter turnout as a way to keep out-of -staters from somehow voting in Maine elections.
You're not so dumb to not see the hypocrisy here, are you?
There is not, nor has there ever been, any evidence of voter fraud in Maine.  So why do Republicans want to suppress voter turnout?  For the very same reason that in some voting districts in this country that are heavily Republican they want to make it easier for people to vote -- because it benefits the Republican Party and the Republican Party only.  They know that more liberals, Democrats, moderates and independents are new registrants than are Republicans and conservatives.  So if you make it harder for the opposition to vote, you lessen the power of the opposition.
I thought the point of having votes was to hear what ALL of the people have to say on an issue.  Remember, our democracy was designed as a democracy by and for the people; but when you let one party suppress the wishes of the people, then it is no democracy at all.  Vote yes on Question 1 on Tuesday.

I would encourage you to go to this page at Protect Maine Votes for a wealth of links to great articles and information on the issue.  There is also an excellent article by Bill Nemitz in today's Portland Press Herald on this topic; much more thorough and well written than what I've done above.  I'd strongly encourage you to read that article.

Make sure you get out there and vote on Tuesday.  The is one of the most important elections perhaps in my lifetime because to not answer the anti-democratic laws that have been instituted in the last couple of years means we agree, right?  And we most certainly do not.  This is not the only important issue being decided in this country Tuesday but it is the most important.  Without our vote, they can do anything they want whether we like it or not.  Remember, a democracy is only powerful if you exercise your right to vote.

Smoke and mirrors

Today Congress reaffirmed that this country's motto is "In God We Trust." Isn't that already our motto? Don't we need jobs more than reaffirming what already exists and isn't being challenged?
See, that's what they do:  ("They" being the ones who are always telling you what a real American is)  They tell the gullible portion of this country that there's a threat to America, even when no such threat exists. It's like these things I see shared on Facebook all the time about supporting the troops and that far too many people don't. You don't know a soul who doesn't support the troops; no one does. But we hear it all the time. It's a divide and conquer tactic. "Those liberals out there are trying to take your guns (while gun ownership and ease of ownership continue to rise); they're trying to take God out of the motto; they don't support the troops." If they don't create an enemy, then even the reasonable people on their side of the aisle will have time to start questioning some of the things their side stands for.
It's all class warfare. They're the ones who are out their echoing that the Occupy Movement is using class warfare, when in fact it's a retaliation to policies of the right that have created class warfare against the middle class. But if you tell your gullibles that the Occupy people are trying to steal from hard working people, you distract them from the truth.  It's been a very successful tactic by the likes of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, et al, for years; tell conservatives what liberals think and want and stand for instead of asking one yourself.  When's the last time you, Mr. and Mrs. Conservative, asked a liberal what they stand for?  Try it, you're very likely to get a big surprise.  We stand for the same things a lot more than they want to you realize.
So the next time you start to nod your head in agreement when someone suggests to you that there are people who don't support the troops, who use their welfare checks to buy crack, etc, ask yourself if you know anyone that that's true about.
UPDATE:  This Daily Show clip from November 3rd fits perfectly, plus as always it's funny as hell.

The Daily Show
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Get the big money out of our politics

While I believe corporations should have a way to stand up for their interests, what the policy decisions of the last 30 years have resulted in is a situation where corporate money is seemingly behind every decision that is made, to the benefit of large corporations and the ultra-rich and against the middle class.
Are you tired of being robbed? Then get involved.
I strongly encourage you to read the article at this link at Huffington Post and to watch the video below. Let's see if that doesn't fire you up.


I would also strongly urge you to go to their website and get involved. You can sign the petition here as well.

Link Day

I'm just sharing some links, with comments, to articles and videos that I've found to be well written and informative in the last few days.  I hope you get something out of these as well.

First is this link from a Washington Post  article by Eugene Robinson regarding the results of a recent study by a scientist that the skeptics (more like deniers looking for any excuse to disagree) had been relying on.  Here's a salient quote from that article:
"When we began our study, we felt that skeptics had raised legitimate issues, and we didn't know what we'd find," Muller wrote. "Our results turned out to be close to those published by prior groups. We think that means that those groups had truly been careful in their work, despite their inability to convince some skeptics of that."
I also agree with the author regarding how much this article will change the minds, or more appropriately the position, of the political far right.
"But Muller's plain-spoken admonition that "you should not be a skeptic, at least not any longer" has reduced many deniers to incoherent grumbling or stunned silence.Not so, I predict, with the blowhards such as Perry, Cain and Bachmann, who, out of ignorance or perceived self-interest, are willing to play politics with the Earth's future. They may concede that warming is taking place, but they call it a natural phenomenon and deny that human activity is the cause."

This Politico opinion piece by Joe Scarborough, who is a Republican and a former U.S. Representative (though I'm sure the far right calls him a RINO, especially since he has a show on MSNBC), that fairly points out one of the constant issues in our political dialogue -- lying to make your point.  While I don't entirely agree with Joe's use of examples, I most certainly agree with his point.  To say that since Democrats supported Clinton's agenda of regime change in Iraq, they can't disagree with Bush actually doing it, is disingenuous but it's still a good article.  Here's the opening line of that piece to give you an idea what issue he's specifically talking about:
"Republicans spent the past decade being shocked and stunned by Democrats who dared to question their president’s motives for going to war in Iraq."
  
For those who still don't understand the rage of the middle class, maybe this Politico piece will help. And even this piece soft pedals the issue to some extent, but it is a fine article about the influence of money in our political system.


This excellent article from The Daily Beast reminds us that the NeoCons are still out there and that their motives and money influence and scare factor are still there.
"They’re back! The neoconservatives who gave America clueless, unpaid-for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus a near doubling of military expenditures, during the Bush years have risen from their political graves. Someone, maybe a media tiring of President Obama’s interminable plight, pulled the stake from their heart. Now they’ve returned to the op-ed pages, the talk shows, the think-tank discussions, and the advisory ranks of Republican presidential candidates."

Finally, I'm remiss in not consistently watching the best show on television, "Charlie Rose."  What follows is classic Charlie Rose, a half-hour, in-depth discussion on an important topic, in this instance the Occupy Wall Street movement.  Unfortunately, they don't have embed links there.  So you'll have to follow this link to watch the video.  The whole 24 minutes is very much worth watching and listening to but in particular listen to Chris Hedges starting at the 20:20 mark and see if you agree with me that it's as well said as I've heard regarding the absence of the liberal media and how he describes the Tea Party being different from Occupy Wall Street.

Semper Fi, Shamar Thomas

As a Marine, I couldn't be prouder.  Another honorable face of the Occupy Movement.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

More thoughts on the Occupy Movement

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Above is an excellent interview with Ellen Schultz regarding another way large corporations are ripping off the middle class.

The Clueless Generation article in The Daily Beast.  I disagree with his premise in part.  He states that the Baby Boomers had it so good that they don't understand the current plight of the middle class.  As someone who's at the end of the Baby Boomer Generation, I and many like me can attest to feeling affected all along the 30 year ride of policy changes that got us here -- rise in education costs, deregulation, runaway debt and a flattening of wages to name just a few.  This didn't happen overnight.

Opinion piece by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich addressing the seven biggest economic lies
I don't know how many times we've stated these exact statistics and truths but they haven't sunk in enough yet.  So we'll keep on pointing them out.



From this excellent Vanity Fair article on Elizabeth Warren:"In those speeches, sometimes using slides filled with numbers and graphs, she would, as she did at a speech in Manhattan in early June, outline the impact on middle-class Americans of rising health-care costs, burgeoning debt, and the depletion of not only their savings but also, with the rise in joblessness, their confidence. She spoke of “the Wild West” conditions deregulation had created, where banks could sell virtually any product they wanted, on any terms: mortgages they knew consumers could not pay off, credit cards whose rates they could raise at whim, products that came with a mind-boggling array of penalty fees, many of them not fully disclosed. But it was her final remarks that brought down the standing-room-only house in June. “We cannot run our country without a strong middle class. We cannot run a democracy without a strong middle class,” she said, her voice quavering slightly. “If we hollow out the middle class,” she said, “then the country we know is gone.”

Did you know that Warren was originally a Republican?  (You must read this Vanity Fair article)  But to quote the article again:
It was in 1979 that Warren had her Damascene conversion—the experience that would lead her to become the nation’s top authority on the economic pressures facing the American middle class, and trigger her passionate advocacy. In 1978, Congress had passed a law that made it easier for companies and individuals to declare bankruptcy. Warren decided to investigate the reasons why Americans were ending up in bankruptcy court. “I set out to prove they were all a bunch of cheaters,” she said in a 2007 interview. “I was going to expose these people who were taking advantage of the rest of us.” What she found, after conducting with two colleagues one of the most rigorous bankruptcy studies ever, shook her deeply. The vast majority of those in bankruptcy courts, she discovered, were from hardworking middle-class families, people who lost jobs or had “family breakups” or illnesses that wiped out their savings. “It changed my vision,” she said.

The only way we're going to change things for the better is to continue the momentum of the Occupy Movement by being angry and unafraid to stand up for the truth, and then to vote.  The moderates and the liberals outnumber the right in this country; and if we all show up at the polls, it doesn't matter how much they lie and how much they spend or who's on the dole.

Apparently we're just a country full of lazy whiners

If this were being used to applaud someone who's overcoming a rigged system, that would be one thing; but it's being used to tell people who are speaking up against a rigged and unfair system that they're just a bunch of lazy whiners. The fact that any child in this country (the country that was established for and by the people) has to go to these extremes just to break even is not something IMHO to be applauded. It serves to continue to enable those who take our money in tax breaks, bailouts, etc, and reward us with crappy, low-paying jobs
If we, the 99%, had that attitude about things, then the Wall Street banks would not have gotten their bailouts and the system would've crashed. Then anybody who was hurt from that crash through no fault of their own , it would've been their fault because they're just lazy losers? There are good elements in that piece but overall it's basically calling everybody who complains about unfairness is a lazy whiner. Bullshit.
What about the people who worked hard, saved their money, invested wisely, didn't go into debt but yet lost their retirements in the crash?  That was their fault too?  
So the young mother of two who decides to leave her abusive husband, she should stop her whining and stay?  If she leaves and can't find a job that will pay enough for her to put a roof over their heads and food in their bellies, that's her fault because she's just lazy and looking for a freebie?  It has nothing to do with the fact that the median income in this country has hardly risen in 30 years while the cost of everything necessary to survive has gone up at a much higher rate?  It has nothing to do with the fact that the biggest corporations in this country are paying less taxes than ever before, are making much larger profits than ever before and yet not creating new jobs with the tax breaks we're giving them?  It has nothing to do with the fact that Wall Street owns the Government of the United States, the government that's supposed to be "by and for the people."
Did you know that now corporations can spend money on elections just as if they were people?  But if you're a corporation, you can hide behind your corporate status and not be held libel for the decisions made by the people who make up that corporation.
As William Buster says in this interview with Charlie Rose, (sorry, there's no embed but I highly recommend you watch) "Occupy Wall Street has been depicted as anti-business.  We're not.  We're not anti-business, we're not anti-banks, we're not anti-government...we're anti-corruption and we're anti-systemic corruption."
I always get a kick out of the right always using personal attacks on the messenger without even trying to understand the message...whatever garbage Fox News puts in front of them, they swallow.  They use things like the note above to try and divide us.  If you want to know what class warfare is, that's as good an example as I can imagine.
This quote from the Vanity Fair article on Elizabeth Warren (that I'll do a post on shortly)  may sum it all up as well as any, “There’s been such a sense that there’s one set of rules for trillion-dollar financial institutions and a different set for all the rest of us. It’s so pervasive that it’s not even hidden.”

Yesterday at the Culter rally in Auburn

It was a very good turnout at the rally, and the crowd and candidate were very enthusiastic and optimistic.  One of the key points to Eliot's speech in Auburn, aside from rallying the faithful, was to point out yet again that he promised to run a clean campaign with no negative or personal attack ads; and he's done that.  Good for you, Eliot, and good for us.
Folks, Eliot can win this thing and I feel he must win if this state is to have a chance of moving forward in a tangible way.
Ask yourselves why has every major newspaper in the state endorsed Eliot Cutler for Governor?  You can't say it's because they're partisan liberals or they would have endorsed the Democrat.  Say what you will about newspapers but I for one still believe journalists are driven by intellectual curiosity and truth.  Smart people write for newspapers.  Don't be afraid of smart people.  Listen to Eliot Cutler speak -- he's not only obviously very intelligent but he's very well informed.  He's done a great deal of research and work to determine what our problems are in this state and how they can be fixed.  He's sincere -- he's not telling us it'll be easy or that we're all going to find pots of gold at the end of the rainbow.  You can feel comfortable knowing that when he becomes Governor, he'll be working for us, not for anyone else.  So return the favor -- get yourself to the polls tomorrow and vote for Eliot Cutler.  Drag along a few friends too.
If you're still undecided and want to do some research of your own, then by all means but make sure you go to Cutler's website as part of your research.
On a personal note, I went over to Eliot after the rally and introduced myself.  Yours truly got a little ego boost when he knew who I was, based on one little blog post.  The man obviously is a good judge of character and has a mind like a steel trap -- firm handshake too, if you're inclined to judge by such things.

Choices

Gay people don't choose to be who they are any more than you do, any more than all the other types of people Christians choose to abhor.  Before you get yourself all bent out of shape, name me an atheist who's a homophobe.  Those who are taught not to judge are the most judgmental.  It has something to do with not wanting to believe God would create something you don't like, so you scramble to your Book to pick and choose your justifications to hate.
We need to stop the hate, stop the ignorance and stop the violence; and instead treat people like we want to be treated.  No one would choose a life of ridicule, pain, shame and perhaps worst of all, trying to be someone they're not -- no more than truly devote Christians would choose to be atheists in a world where they were the overwhelming minority.  Right?
So this is my first small attempt to get people to think a little more on this issue, while probably pissing off just as many but hopefully getting people to think about their choices.
So if I still have your attention and you haven't already seen it, I'd ask you to watch this short clip and then read a great blog post by someone who's lived in the closet because of us.
Thanks Mary and Heidi for introducing me to this video:


The blog post I mentioned is written by a friend of mine, someone who treats me with respect and doesn't care about my sexual, religious or any other orientation; and we're still friends because we haven't started treating each other differently since he decided to be himself.  This post, entitled Sunday Morning Hangover, is very well written and insightful, for those of you who care to think about things you don't understand.  After you've read it, ask yourself if you'd choose to be different in a world that truly hates different.

Karl Denninger, Tea Party Founder, Blasts Palin, Gingrich & 'Douchebag' Tea Party Groups

Because if you can get these angry masses to focus on the liberals, the media, the Hispanics and the gay, you can twist them right around backwards. The GOP is brilliant -- they got these people in no time flat to forget who it was that robbed them blind, started the bailouts, let the corporate execs into the watchdog beauracracy, created an economy full of entry level jobs; and thus welcomed these same thieves and liars to the top and in control of their movement.

Watch this great interview between Dylan Ratigan, Karl Denninger (one of the founders of the Tea Party movement) and Cenk Uygur. At the 7:15 mark listen to Cenk say much better than I just did how easily this was done.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

My vote will be for Eliot Cutler

As will probably come as no surprise to those who know how fiercely independent I am, I have decided to vote for Eliot Cutler for Governor of Maine.  In a nutshell it comes down to voting for who I feel can do the best job for the people of Maine and doing the best job for the state takes many forms.  Not only do I feel he is best suited ideologically, has the best skill set and the best breadth of experience but in my opinion he is the only candidate who has any chance from a practical standpoint of affecting the necessary change.  Frankly, being the only moderate in the race, he's the candidate whose plans and ideology are in tune with the vast majority of Mainers.  And although it's a campaign slogan, "Independent, just like Maine" gives you a pretty good idea who he'll represent in the Blaine House.
With Libby Mitchell, while less destructive an option, we know we're going to get more of the same -- not fiscally conservative enough to make the necessary tough decisions and surrounded by a Legislature of like mind.  So I don't expect a sea change in direction.
Paul LePage?  The kindest thing I could say about a potential LePage administration is entrenched bickering with the Democratic majority in the Legislature.  Ideologically I disagree in practically every way with him and while I consider myself moderately conservative fiscally, I'm still a million miles away from him.  And before you assume I won't vote for him because he's a Republican, which I don't think he is anyway, I had pretty much decided I was going to vote for Peter Mills before the primaries.
So in my opinion Eliot Cutler is the only candidate with a legitimate opportunity to get his plans pushed through the legislature, plans that will actually make a difference. 
And I know you're going to say "But aren't you just throwing your vote away?"  "Isn't a vote for Cutler actually a vote for LePage?"  I'll take the last first.  There's much debate about who the undecided voters are and given Cutler's leaning toward being fiscally conservative, I wouldn't be so sure that he'd take more votes from Mitchell than LePage.  If you vote for the person you truly feel is the best qualified, how could that ever be throwing a vote away?  And let me ask you this to chew on:  If I'm right that neither Mitchell nor LePage are change agents for the better, then aren't you throwing your vote away supporting them?
I admit this post isn't big on details but to write a post like that would end up being unreadable.  If you know me, you know I do my due diligence and I don't take the process lightly.  My purpose is to make you curious at least as to why I support Eliot Cutler and then do your own research and make up your own mind.  If you're as intellectually curious as I am, I think you'll arrive at the same conclusion.
And as always, at least get out there and vote.  Don't let someone else make the decision for you.