Baldacci for the 2nd

Rep. John Baldacci may well be the hardest-working person in Maine politics. In two terms representing the 2nd Congressional District, the Bangor Democrat has proven himself to be a detail-oriented, constituent-focused consensus builder. He deserves a third term.

He’s not the flashiest in the House; he’s not likely to be delivering sound bites on the network evening news or expounding on the Sunday morning talk shows. When Congress is in session, he’s there, taking care of business. Other times, he’s back home in Maine, on the docks, in the working forest, in the potato fields, listening and learning.

It’s hard to imagine a representative who could better exemplify the folks of Maine’s largely rural upper tier. His roots are in small business, the family restaurant. Like many in a region where things don’t come easily, he juggled job and family responsibilities while he pursued a college degree. The degree took 10 years to get, but he got it. He served effectively in government at the local and state levels and has continued that growth in his four years in Congress.

Maine has a small congressional delegation, one that easily could be overlooked. Baldacci, fellow Democrat Rep. Tom Allen and Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins all deserve high praise for not allowing that to happen by working together in a bipartisan spirit and in the state’s best interests. When many were ranting about proposed federal whale-protection rules that threatened to destroy Maine’s lobster industry, the delegation worked together to craft a livable compromise. With Togus under attack, the delegation is working together to keep it a hospital that can meet the complex needs of Maine’s veterans. Maine needs a team in Washington and Baldacci has demonstrated his ability to be a team player.

As a member of the House Agriculture Committee, Baldacci has worked effectively on behalf of potato farmers, blueberry growers and the dairy and lumber industries. Now he’s in line for a seat on the Transportation Committee, a posting that should be of great value to the district and to the entire state.

The challenger, Republican Jonathan Reisman of Cooper, is to be commended for running a civil campaign and for campaigning as much as he has, given the meager resources provided by his party. However, the University of Maine at Machias professor, a former Democrat and independent Gov. Angus King’s 1994 county chairman, is a recent convert to conservative Republicanism and it shows. His top priority, for example, is school choice. That’s a core value of conservatives at the national level, but school choice is largely theoretical in the far-flung towns of rural Maine where bus routes rule. If Mr. Reisman is to pursue politics at this level in this district, he needs to focus upon nuts and bolts, not theory.

Baldacci is a tireless, nuts-and-bolts kind of guy. When Northern Maine loggers blocked ports of entry last week to protest the import of Canadian labor, Baldacci was there at sunrise. At sunset, he was elsewhere in the district serving up his famous spaghetti dinners for charity. He’s a worker and voters would do well to put him back to work in Washington.