Gov. McKernan

By Election Day, six weeks of almost relentless campaigning and advertising will have blurred significant distinctions between Gov. John R. McKernan and Rep. Joseph Brennan, the two candidates for governor. But time and money for self-promotion will not have obscured two principles on which most voters will choose the man who will lead the state for the next four years: Trust and confidence.

Voters on Nov. 6 will ask themselves: Which man do I trust?

It is clear after reviewing the long march of words since Labor Day that Gov. John McKernan has made the most credible and convincing presentation to the voters of Maine.

Voters on Nov. 6 will ask themselves: Which man has earned the job?

Congressman Joseph Brennan did nothing in either four years in Congress or in his two terms as governor to inspire any public confidence in his ability to lead Maine or the nation during hard times. Conversely, Gov. John McKernan has handled well Maine’s share of exceedingly poor national economic conditions.

This campaign got off to an unusual, and unfortunate start, but because of that it has taught the state much about these two men.

In what at the time was criticized as a serious tactical error, Gov. John McKernan allowed his challenger to behave as if he were the incumbent. Rep. Brennan quickly seized the opportunity to freewheel and he established a pattern of pounding away on the state’s fiscal problems. He blamed the governor for the state of the economy. He attacked McKernan’s management of state finances.

Joseph Brennan pounded on throughout the late summer and early fall, slugging away at slumping state revenues and slow business activity. He believed that the worse he could make things look, the better he would appear to be. For weeks, Maine wallowed in the hollow, negative tone established by the congressman. Like a man carrying a sign proclaiming, “THE END IS NEAR,” Joseph Brennan spread a political doctrine based on fear and isolation.

At a time when Maine people needed inspiration and leadership, Joe Brennan gave them the politics of despair.

In October, the truth caught up with Brennan.

No candidate, even one left alone to fabricate his personal view of events, can hide forever from reality.

By fall, Maine knew that its economic pain was only part of a larger national economic condition bordering on recession. Maine people realized that despite the foreboding of candidate Brennan and the disturbing national economic news, their state budget had run for three consecutive months in the black. They learned that their governor was the only incumbent in New England who had avoided meeting revenue shortfalls either with a tax increase or with an ignominious withdrawal from public life.

When the bottom fell out of New England’s economy this year, crippling banks and devastating the real estate market, three of the region’s chief executives took the easy way out. In Connecticut, Vermont, and Massachusetts, incumbent governors announced that they would leave public office. John McKernan didn’t flinch. He stood in and confronted not only the fiscal challenge presented by the economy, but also the spiritually corrosive effect of Congressman Brennan’s bleak message.

Gov. McKernan demonstrated what real leadership is, showing Maine by example that solutions are found in confronting problems, not in running from them or in carping about events over which no person has any control.

This has been the pattern throughout John McKernan’s first term as governor:

When then Gov. Brennan failed to prepare the state for changes in the 1986 federal tax code and Maine overcollected on personal income taxes, Gov. McKernan took the heat and gave back $51.2 million in rebates to Maine taxpayers. Tax rates were adjusted downward, reducing yearly collections by $40 million.

When the people of Maine voted for indexing of income taxes in 1982, then Gov. Brennan threatened to slash local welfare assistance and aid to schools if he was forced to honor indexing retroactively. He won, and spent the $41 million that belonged to Maine taxpayers.

Eve Bither, McKernan’s commissioner of education, has been aggressive, controversial and outspoken, vigorously pushing Maine’s public schools to adopt higher standards, raise the expectations of all students and then to be accountable for their performance to parents and taxpayers.

Name one of Brennan’s education commissioners during his eight years in office.

Gov. McKernan three years ago turned Maine’s economic attention to the global marketplace. His conference in Orono on the Free Trade Agreement with Canada redirected the thinking of scores of businessmen, educators, and professionals. It was the beginning of a profound change in attitude and perspective: Maine is not an appendage at the end of the continental United States, it is in the middle of an economic opportunity that reaches from Canada to Europe to the Far East.

Under John McKernan’s leadership, Maine has come to understand that it is not isolated by its geography and that its people are limited only by their aspirations.

Trust and confidence. Gov. John McKernan has earned both from the people of Maine. He also has earned another term from those who believe that the future holds promise.