Political commentary natural for liberal Hay

Books come in categories from science fiction to arts to classics. Jean Hay’s book, “Proud to be a Card-Carrying, Flag-Waving, Patriotic American Liberal,” comes under the category “surplus campaign assets.” While the title could come under the designation “too long,” it tells you just what you need to know about the book: it’s political.

Just how political you can judge for yourself. The former journalist and organic farmer will be at Borders bookstore tonight at 7:30 to read from her book. She is looking “for closet liberals who might be encouraged to come out.” Ordinary people are also invited. Political foes might add spice to the mix, a challenge Hay will not shrink from.

Self-published to retire campaign debts during a run at the U.S. Senate in the last general election, Hay’s book is a collection of opinion pieces written over the last 17 years, back to February 1980. Hay said the pieces were chosen for “historical context and to show a lot of these issues are still timely.”

The issues she addresses are familiar ones: flag burning, military spending, living green, the minimum wage and others. But Hay says the book is as much a response to political baiting as it is an expression of her opinions.

“It was really discouraging to see `liberal’ designated a bad word” by George Bush, she said, which may explain the length of the title and the cover graphic, a caricature of her waving an American flag that “some people, including my mother, were taken aback by.”

But the book that began as campaign literature, Hay hopes will serve another purpose: “To get a perception out there that I don’t see enough.” She makes no apology for not being politically correct. “People who worry about being politically correct stifle themselves. It’s a form of self-censorship.”

Hay’s aspirations as an admittedly “extremely opinionated” person are to earn a journalism degree and become a political columnist or talk show host. Already she has done a couple shows on WERU radio and written pieces for several publications. Unabashedly left wing, she is committed to her “lifelong concept that you follow your passion.”

She makes no bones about claiming she is writing from a woman’s perspective and that one of her aims is “to empower other women to express their opinion.”

Of her forays into politics, running for Congress in 1994 and the U.S. Senate in 1996 in the Democratic primaries, she is candid: “I think I have proven myself unelectable to federal office in the state of Maine at this time.”

To be successful in politics, she says, “It takes things I’m not willing to do,” spending time raising money instead of discussing the issues, spending money she doesn’t have to raise money she won’t get. At a time when campaign finance is being debated in Washington, she says she would like to see a level playing field: “Cut costs so everybody has a better shot.”

She was surprised “how little attention is paid to candidates and issues during the primaries,” blaming it on the economics of the media and its inability to provide adequate coverage of large fields of candidates. Elections are a “horse race in which the number of bets on a horse determines the winner of the race and not how good the horse is.” She believes the electorate needs to recognize that “they can’t be passive anymore.”

Hay readily identifies with those she calls “ordinary people,” people with driver’s licenses, permits to run farm stands, certification to shoot off fireworks, grand jury experience, people who make soap and soap boxes from which to make speeches, people like Jean Hay, who can claim all of these as credentials of ordinariness, as credentials to run for elected office.

Things get done “when people like me take it upon themselves to do something about it.” At a time when “too much detachment between government and people” exists, Hay says, “People need to know what the government is doing,” and she wants to be the one to tell you about it — even if you don’t agree with her.