The pathological wisdom in Maine is that political candidates or ideas must be “moderate” to win and that “conservatives” or conservative solutions cannot triumph. Horsefeathers. History, both current and past, disagrees.

Billionaire George Soros recently pledged $10 million to a new Demo-cratic group, America Coming Together (ACT), devoted to defeating President Bush in 2004. ACT announced that it will focus its efforts on only 17 states, one of which is Maine. Our state was tightly contested in the 2000 election and promises to be close again next year. Bush is not running as an avowed “moderate.”

(By the way, so much for the McCain-Feingold Act that sought to eviscerate soft money. Soros’ gift will be the largest single political donation from an individual in history.)

When I was an Ann Arbor, Mich., city councilman, I was literally ordered by the chairman of the Republican Party not to vote for Ronald Reagan in the primary against Gerald Ford. The chairman argued threateningly that Ford was moderate and that Reagan was far too conservative, far too extremist to carry the state against a Democratic opponent.

Guess what? Ford, the moderate and favorite son of the state from Grand Rapids, was trounced in Michigan by Jimmy Carter. And four short years later Ronald Reagan, running as an avowed conservative, carried the state by a sizable margin.

What matters in this business of politics is the charisma of the candidate and the substance of his or her solutions to the problems of the electorate.

A politically astute friend recently pointed out what Maine needs: “a stupid candidate like Reagan” – “stupid” in the sense that when pundits and spin doctors say to the candidate, as they did to Reagan, “You can’t say that, you can’t do that,” he goes right ahead and says it and does it anyway.

Reagan would later write into one speech, for example, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” The State Department deleted it, Reagan re-inserted it, the State Department again struck it, Reagan put it back in. The spin doctors wanted him to be “moderate.” The public did not.

Voter registrations show that in Maine, 30 percent are Republicans, 30 percent Democrats, and 40 percent independents. So like Pavlov’s animal, the label that opportunistically flows out of the safe mouths of candidates is “moderate.” If every candidate is avowedly “moderate,” how is the voter expected to discern a real difference between virtually indistinguishable centrists?

Republicans worry more about the albatross of the label “conservative” than do Democrats. I have witnessed in the newspapers, for example, that when on some few occasions someone has reported that Sen. Snowe or Sen. Collins has said or done something “conservative,” each has promptly issued a rejoinder, asserting that she is “moderate.”

Conservatives are thought to be extremists; moderates and liberals are not regarded that way, even when they are that way. How is Gov. John Baldacci any less extreme than, say, Senate Minority Leader Paul Davis? One can argue, oh so easily, that Baldacci’s Dirigo Health Care plan is extreme – undeniably Keynesian extremism.

But what Maine desperately needs now is not politics as usual, but radical (meaning, at the roots), constructive changes for the public good. We have all read the long litany of economic figures, illustrating the harmful conditions of the status quo. Such will not be ameliorated by the ostrich approach or by the politics of denial. With taxpayer rebellion in the air, the time is ripe for conservative solutions.

Margaret Thatcher once observed, “Of course it’s the same old story, Truth usually is the same old story.” And the same old story in Maine is that it needs to do three things: one, reduce property and state income taxes; two, reduce government spending; three, permit reasonable growth that will enable additional revenues that provide relief for overtaxed Mainers.

Let us therefore have candidates who are “liberal,” “moderate” and “conservative” and who offer up an open, honest philosophy, from which the electorate can knowingly select. Please, no more candidates being safely, opportunistically “moderate” when the label is a disingenuous sham.

Ronald L. Trowbridge, Ph. D. is president of the Maine Heritage Policy Center.