Gov. Baldacci gets early high marks

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AUGUSTA – One hundred days into his tenure as governor, Democrat John E. Baldacci can claim some notable accomplishments even while seeming nonchalant about one basic gubernatorial task.

Three times now Baldacci has won bipartisan backing for budget legislation, including a $5.3 billion biennial blueprint that avoided broad-based tax increases while offsetting virtually all of a potential $1 billion gap between spending demands and anticipated revenue.

He also succeeded in getting a borrowing proposal on a special June ballot that he suggests will signal state government’s interest in stimulating the sluggish economy by raising public funds for a variety of economic development initiatives.

In recent days, he even reduced by one the number of vacancies in his Cabinet, which still stands at two, three or five depending on how the counting is done.

Baldacci’s tardiness on that score has puzzled many, but doesn’t faze him.

With no mention of false starts or delays in settling on some choices, the governor says his departmental restructuring plans – human services, mental health, perhaps economic and community development – have allowed him to keep some top slots open.

“If you’re going to make this happen, you can’t have people who are interested in protecting their turfs,” Baldacci says. “Why do you want to put people in if you’re going to end up putting them out?”

The Cabinet appointments and staff hiring that Baldacci has done reflect in part a long-standing familiarity with policy-oriented and politically active Democrats whom he came to know or know of during 12 years in the state Senate and eight years in Congress.

The budget successes, and to a lesser degree the enactment of a scaled-back borrowing proposal, have demonstrated the ability of Maine’s first Democratic governor in 16 years not only to maintain the support of his Democratic allies in the House and Senate majorities but also to draw in votes from the wary Republican minorities.

Here, Baldacci’s anti-tax, pro-business stance generally are perceived as key.

“We have a responsibility to make Maine more competitive and I feel very strongly that we’ve got to get this albatross off our backs of being the highest-taxed state,” he says.

At the same time, Baldacci says, personal rapport with individual lawmakers also has been essential.

“These people are friends. And I think that we’re going to have disagreements, but we’re going to do it in an agreeable fashion and at the end of the day we’re going to pull together and do what’s in the interests of the state of Maine and the citizens of this state,” he says.

Senate President Beverly Daggett, D-Augusta, cites an open-door policy as one of Baldacci’s strengths.

“He’s made it easy to work with him,” she says.

The Republican leader of the House of Representatives, Joe Bruno of Raymond, joins others in giving Baldacci high grades to date.

“He’s been great to work with,” Bruno says. “Even when we disagree, he understands our disagreements. … He’s been given a lot of slack by Republicans because he’s willing to work with us.”

Harold Pachios, whose law firm has close ties with Maine’s Democratic Party, credits Baldacci with developing a coherent agenda and holding to it.

“I think he’s been extremely successful and I think the reason is that he has objectives. He’s focused on economic development, he sticks to his guns. He has a message that everybody likes,” Pachios says.

Similar praise comes from Maine State Chamber of Commerce President Dana Connors.

“Outstanding, actually,” says Connors, who has been enlisted by Baldacci to help review the organization of state government’s economic development operations.

“He came in with a vision and made it clear what his priorities were. … He has stayed on course.”

On such matters as the budget, Connors says Baldacci “has had to say no while at the same time providing the leadership and collaboration to make it work.”

Since being sworn in on Jan. 8, Baldacci has proved that “what he said in the campaign was not political rhetoric,” says Connors.

Still to come on the governor’s ambitious to-do list are initiatives to bolster Maine’s health care system and overhaul the state tax system. Still hanging are yet another round of budget-balancing negotiations and further talks on long-term borrowing.

All this is playing out against the backdrop of an issue not of Baldacci’s choosing – industrial contraction.

His response has earned plaudits from organized labor.

“He’s been doing well. He’s been dealt a difficult hand with the state budget and a series of plant-closing notices,” says Maine AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Ned McCann.

Baldacci assumed office as chief executive under the shadow of shutdowns at the Great Northern Paper Inc. mills.

“Any governor would be concerned about the loss of a major employer, but I’ve never seen anybody dig in as hard and as effectively,” McCann says.

“Are we going to agree on everything? Probably not,” says McCann. “But I have to give him tremendous credit for going to bat for ordinary workers in small towns in Maine.”

Baldacci barely entertains questioning on whether he deliberately tacks in one direction and then another as a way of courting public sentiment.

“You do the right thing or you try to do the right thing, I think good things will happen,” he says.