World Wide Woodard

The New Republic on American Nations and the GOP Primaries

2012-01-24T16:59:00.005-05:00

The New Republic's Alec MacGillis today offers this enjoyable piece which muses on how the winners of the Republican presidential primaries to date have each turned out to have each had a "national" home court advantage, as defined by my new book, American Nations.

Given the same assignment, I would have written almost exactly what MacGillis did. The pattern of national origins -- more or less -- has been hard to miss, but my paradigm is really about defining and explaining dominant cultures, not the individuals living within them (who may love, hate, or have mixed feelings about various aspects of the cultural atmosphere around them). Politicians are wonderful ciphers for understanding these cultures, but largely by dint of their policies having been accepted or rejected by the voting populace of a given regional culture. That, say, Tom DeLay was born outside of the Deep South isn't really of interest; that he was elected -- time and again -- by the people of a Deep Southern district very much is, because it is revealing of the dominant priorities of that area.

If cultural prerogatives continue to play out, Gingrich is likely to push Romney aside in Florida (because so much of it is in the Deep South), while Romney is going to have a leg up in Yankee Michigan.

The Making of Paul LePage, Part II

2012-01-18T19:51:00.006-05:00

The second and final part of my biography of Maine governor Paul LePage is in the new issue of the Portland Phoenix. The first part was last week's cover story.

Part II of "The Making of Paul LePage" traces the governor's life from his college graduation in 1971 to inauguration day 2010. It debunks rumors about his time in Canada, sheds light on the lessons of his business career, and traces how he came to be interested -- and succeed -- in politics.

My thanks again to the Fund for Investigative Journalism in Washington, D.C. for their support of this project.

And now, here's your photographic moment of zen.

The Making of Paul LePage, Part I

2012-01-12T10:48:00.007-05:00

The first installment of my two-part, 10,000-word biography of Maine Governor Paul LePage is the cover story of this week's Portland Phoenix, which hit the streets overnight.

Part I of "The Making of Paul LePage" takes us from his sixth-great grandfather, the First Lord of Rimouski, Quebec, to his 1971 college graduation. Part II, out next week, brings us from Canada to inauguration day, one year ago this week.

My thanks to the Fund for Investigative Journalism in Washington, D.C. for their support of this project, which has been several months in the making.

[Update, 1/18/2012: Here's a link to Part II.]

Talking American Nations on NHPR, Primary Day, Jan. 10

2012-01-09T15:08:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow, January 10, is the New Hampshire presidential primary. To mark the occasion, I'll be on New Hampshire Public Radio's call-in program, The Exchange, from 9 to 10 am tomorrow, talking about American Nations. Laura Knoy is the host. Call in, Granite Staters, if you're so inspired.

I did a little primary coverage this year, evaluating Jon Huntsman's effort to capture the hearts of Yankee Republicans to keep his campaign alive. Regional cultures, of course, figure into my thinking on the issue.

Maine: who is behind the regulatory takings bill?

2011-12-22T19:20:00.006-05:00

Here in Maine, a special legislative study committee has been at work on recommendations in regards to a proposed bill to compensate landowners if the potential resale value of their property is diminished by regulations. It's a controversial issue on which a fair bit has already been written about in the press and blogosphere.

In this week's Portland Phoenix, I focused on a matter of process: how could it be that the Pierce Atwood takings attorney who wrote the original "takings" bill and is said to be the driving force in the study committee hasn't ever registered as a lobbyist or revealed who she has been hired to represent? And what's up with this 2008 rule change allowing lobbyists to avoid disclosure when serving on commissions, task forces, and study commissions? (Source.)

Read on to find out more.

A few readers have asked what the next step would be in pursuing this matter. The answer: an interested party would ask the state ethics commission to investigate the issue; the body would presumably communicate with Pierce Atwood, evaluate their rationale, and determine if they believed the firm was in compliance. No word as yet as to whether anyone has done so.

American Nations makes The New Republic's Best Books of 2011

2011-12-21T07:55:00.004-05:00

I am very pleased to see that the editor's of The New Republic have included American Nations in their Best Books of 2011 list.

"Woodard persuasively argues that the origins, spread, and clash of “Yankeedom,” “Borderlanders,” and the “Midlands,” along with eight other regional “nations” that he identifies, explain a great deal about how we arrived at our current pass and raise serious questions about our union’s future prospects," writes TNR senior editor Alec MacGillis, who was assigned to review the book for the Washington Post.

The book is in good company. The TNR list also includes the new titles from Adam Hochschild, Michael Kazin, Jeffrey Eugenides, and the late Ellen Willis. Thanks again, TNR.

A reminder for those of you in midcoast Maine: I'll be meeting readers and signing books in Boothbay Harbor this evening from 5:30 to 7:30. The event is at Studio 53; come by if you can.

American Nations in North Carolina, Midcoast Maine

2011-12-18T10:29:00.006-05:00

Today's Raleigh News & Observer recommends five titles as gifts this holiday season including, I'm pleased to say, American Nations. (The compiler, Rob Christensen, also wrote a recent column referencing the book.)

I was also a guest yesterday on Inside Maine with Phil Harriman on Portland's own WGAN. (Phil kindly plugged the book as well.) Our conversation is now online at their website.

If you happen to live in central Midcoast Maine and want to take Phil or the News & Observer up on their recommendations, I'll be meeting readers and signing all of my titles in Boothbay Harbor this Wednesday, Dec. 21, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. The event is at Studio 53. (At last report, there were also signed copies still in stock at Longfellow Books and the Maine Historical Society in Portland and the Maine Coast Bookshop in Damariscotta.)

Jon Huntsman's conquest of Yankeedom

2011-12-17T08:01:00.004-05:00

Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman has been receiving a lot of ink in the past 48 hours, in large part because his polling numbers have surged in New Hampshire. I started this past week with him in Plymouth, New Hampshire. My take on his stake-it-all-on-the-Granite-State candidacy is up over at Washington Monthly.

I argue that Huntsman differs from the rest of the GOP pack not in political moderation -- he's extremely conservative in most respects -- but in that he does not share the belief that government is inherently evil (and must be destroyed) or that big oil, big banks, and bigtime lobbyists are inherently virtuous (and, therefore, should be deregulated.) It's an argument that will get a fair hearing in Yankeedom and Utah, though its likely to win him few friends among Deep Southern primary voters.

Speaking on American Nations, Damariscotta, Dec. 15

2011-12-14T08:05:00.002-05:00

A notice for midcoast Mainers: I'll be giving my American Nations talk at the Skidomha Library in downtown Damariscotta tomorrow, December 15, at 10 a.m.

The event is sponsored by the Maine Coast Bookshop, one of the state's finest (and, I suspect, strongest) bookstores, whose staff will be selling all four of my titles. Do come by if you can.

Some other upcoming events in Maine: I'll be doing a signing in Boothbay Harbor on the evening of Dec. 21, and will be a guest on WGAN's Inside Maine with Phil Harriman about 11:30 am this Saturday, Dec. 17.

The Geography of Executions

2011-12-13T10:17:00.005-05:00

My latest piece over at Washington Monthly is on capital punishment's stark regional patterns. It is, of course, utilizing the American Nations framework.

This is the third analytical piece I've posted at the Monthly's Ten Miles Square blog since my feature on the geography of the Tea Party appeared in the magazine six weeks ago. The others looked at the regional patterns of the Occupy movement, the results of the 2011 off-year elections, and the implications of Mormonism's Yankee roots for Mitt Romney's candidacy and perhaps even the long-term political alignment of Utah.

Maine Sunday Telegram reviews American Nations

2011-12-12T08:08:00.004-05:00

The Maine Sunday Telegram -- the Sunday edition of the Portland Press Herald - reviewed my new book, American Nations, yesterday.

"One sure sign of a good book is that you can read it straight through enjoyably," writes reviewer Bill Barry of the Maine Historical Society. "The sign of a superb book is that you find yourself debating its propositions and arguments weeks after reading it. American Nations... is a superb book."

A few upcoming American Nations events: I'll be doing a live webinar at Global Post on Tuesday mid-day, a lecture in Damariscotta, Maine on Thursday morning, and a signing in Boothbay Harbor on the evening of Dec. 21.

ABC News.com interview on Tea Party, Globalist excerpt on Greenland

2011-12-10T08:20:00.008-05:00

My feature in the current issue of Washington Monthly argues that the Tea Party is doomed to failure in large swaths of the country, due to the underlying regional values I've identified in American Nations. Since the piece appeared in mid-October (the Monthly is no longer monthly), various polls have showed declining support for the movement, which experienced setbacks in November's off-year election.

ABC News interviewed me yesterday for their digital story on these developments -- "Is the Party Over?" -- which you can read here.

Meanwhile, The Globalist -- the online magazine on global culture, politics, and economics -- published an excerpt today from the book's epilogue describing the (re)emergence of what I call First Nation, with special focus on Greenland, a nearly-independent nation I reported from in 2007.

A couple of scheduling notes: I'll be doing a live webinar at Global Post on Tuesday mid-day, a lecture in Damariscotta, Maine on Thursday morning, and a signing in Boothbay Harbor on the evening of Dec. 21. Perhaps will see some of you at one of these events.

American Nations webinar at Global Post, Dec. 13

2011-12-09T09:33:00.001-05:00

I'm Colin Woodard and I endorse this message:

Free Webinar: American Nations — The Eleven Rival Cultures of North America

Join us for a Webinar on December 13

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/424625350

GlobalPost is pleased to invite you to a Webinar with Colin Woodard, author of the best-selling "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America."

On the cusp of the 2012 election year, few books provide more insight into the complex riot of American politics than American Nations, which delves into the country's entrenched regional cultural mosaic.

Newsweek calls Woodard's book "a triumph," and the Washington Post hails it as "compelling and informative ... a bracing corrective to an accepted national narrative that too often overlooks regional variations to tell a simpler and more reassuring story. "

Woodard is a writer, historian, award-winning journalist and occasional contributor to GlobalPost. He will be interviewed by GlobalPost Senior Editor David Case, and will take questions from the audience.

Space is limited, and priority for this call will be granted to GlobalPost members. To ensure your attendance, you can join GlobalPost for less than $3 per month, at www.globalpost.com/members/information.

(Important note: Everyone — including members — must register for the call at least two hours before it begins.)

Title:	Free Webinar: American Nations — The Eleven Rival Cultures of North America
Date:	Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Time:	12:00 PM - 12:30 PM EST

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

Talking American Nations on Maine Public Broadcasting

2011-12-02T18:59:00.009-05:00

On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of being the guest for the pilot episode of a new 45-minute call-in and interview show on the radio stations of the Maine Public Broadcasting Network. The show -- as yet unnamed -- is hosted by the always-brilliant Keith Shortall. We were, of course, discussing my new book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.

MPBN hasn't posted a link to the full show, but this evening they ran a cogently-edited six-minute segment of my interview on their flagship news program, "Maine Things Considered." Links to the audio -- and a map of the "nations" -- are available on their website.

(A footnote for Maine media watchers: MPBN has a new president, one who has extensive experience in public broadcasting, having headed Vermont Public Radio for years. VPR, like MPBN, is based in a rural state, and has transmitters that extend across state boundaries and on into Canada.)

[Update, 12/8/2011: The audio of the full call-in show is now up at MPBN's website.]

American Nations, the audiobook

2011-11-30T21:40:00.006-05:00

Just in time for the holidays, American Nations is now available as an audiobook edition from Gildan Media. Walter Dixon narrates.

If you don't see it at your local bookstore -- or, indeed, if your local bookstore ceased to exist -- you can find it at Amazon.com, or you can download it to Kindle, iPhone, iPod, and various other newfangled devices via Audible.com. (This being the 21st century, Audible is a subsidiary of Amazon; there is no escape.)

Charleston Post & Courier, Jefferson Public Radio on American Nations

2011-11-28T12:29:00.008-05:00

My thanks go out again to PBS News Hour, whose interview with me broadcast on Thanksgiving evening has given enormous attention to American Nations.

This Sunday, the Charleston Post & Courier weighed in on the book, the first review from the birthplace of the Deep South. I came out o.k. "In places, Woodard stretches some to get his supporting details, and it's easy to see bias against a particular culture," the reviewer writes. "But maybe it's not so much a bias as it is anger at the regions that won't come together for the good of the country. Woodard points out that the United States doesn't have a whole lot holding it together besides its central government; if that government ceases to function effectively, he argues, this country might go the way of the Soviet Union."

Last week, I spent an hour with Jefferson Public Radio, which broadcasts across the sprawling territory of the abortive State of Jefferson in far northern California and southern Oregon, a region I argue to be divided between Left Coast and Far West. The interview and call-in is now online.

PBS News Hour interview, Annapolis Capital Thanksgiving message

2011-11-25T07:29:00.011-05:00

I was a guest on PBS News Hour last night, talking about American Nations. The segment -- filmed recently at a historic tavern in Alexandria, Virginia -- is now online for those who missed it. My thanks to Margaret Warner and her team for both their interest in the book's thesis and their incredible preparation and engagement with the material.

The segment is, of course, fabulous exposure for the book, especially coming on the heels of the Washington Post's review and being this week's featured author in The Week. It's wonderful to have it catching on right at the opening of both the gift-giving and U.S. presidential campaign seasons.

I also also enjoyed this sweethearted, American Nations-inspired Thanksgiving editorial from The Capital in Annapolis, Maryland. "Thanksgiving is being celebrated today in all of Garreau's nine nations and Woodard's 11 regional cultures," The Capital's editors write. "These feelings aren't different in Woodard's Tidewater, Greater Appalachia, Yankeedom, Deep South or anywhere else under the Stars and Stripes. They aren't limited by politics. And they unite us - even if it's only for one day - with each other."

Finally, a Black Friday reminder for those of you in southern Maine: I'll be joining 25 other authors to meet readers and sign books at the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance Holiday Book Sale today, 12-3 at the Portland Public Library. Come if you can.

My PBS News Hour interview, airing tonight

2011-11-24T00:01:00.002-05:00

Thanks to my father's media habits, I've been watching the PBS News Hour since grade school, back when it was still called the MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, and the wonderful Nova Scotian, Robin MacNeil, was co-hosting. I still turn to it as an antidote to the frenetic, sensationalized network and cable news, coupled with the half-hour fix of the BBC carried by my local public television network.

So I'm especially pleased to have been interviewed by the News Hour's Margaret Warner about my new book, American Nations, for a segment that's scheduled to run tonight, Thanksgiving evening. If you live in Maine or New Hampshire, that's at 7pm, though its sometimes broadcast earlier or later in other parts of the country. We filmed the segment at the Gadsby Tavern in Alexandria, Virginia, a structure dating back to 1785, when it served as sort of the Willard Hotel of its age, a gathering place for past and present presidents, Senators, and cabinet officials of the Early Republic.

Please tune in whilst you digest your turkey.

If you're looking for other ways to idle away the holiday, Washington Monthly has just posted my latest American Nations-fueled piece on U.S. politics, this one on Mitt Romney, Mormonism, and Yankeedom and provocatively titled "Can the Dems Flip Utah?" Its one of a series of pieces at their Ten Miles Square blog tapping off my feature in the current issue of the magazine. Have a look, and let me know what you think, particularly if you live in Utah.

And Happy Thanksgiving.

[Update, 1/25/2011: The interview is now online as well.]

Signing books with 25 other authors, Portland, Black Friday

2011-11-23T14:51:00.003-05:00

For those of you in Greater Portland preparing your Black Friday shopping plans: consider including the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance Holiday Book Fair in your plans.

I'll be joining 25 other Maine authors to meet readers, sign books, and support MWPA and their indie bookstore partners on Friday, Nov. 25 from 12 to 3 at the Portland Public Library.

Also scheduled to attend: Liza Bakewell, Crash Barry, Robert Chute, Susan Conley, Mary Morton Cowan, George Daughan, Paul Doiron, Gerri Eastment, Robin Hansen, Jamie Hogan, Hannah Holmes, Lily King, Jessica Kinney, Sharon Lee, Steve Miller, Wesley McNair, Maria Padian, Elizabeth Peavey, Richard Roberts, Sandy Seeley Walling, Caitlin Shetterly, Susan Hand Shetterly, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Sarah Thomson, Chris Van Dusen, and James Witherell.

Buy local, support arts & letters, and have some fun.

The Week's Author of the Week

2011-11-22T11:14:00.004-05:00

The latest update from the Department of Shameless Self-Promotion (which seems to have seized control of this blog in recent weeks):

I received my latest copy of The Week magazine in the mail, and was pleased to find myself featured in the "Author of the Week" space on page 27. (You need to subscribe to the see The Week's material online.) The magazine quotes from two recent interviews in the online versions of Rolling Stone and Miller-McCune magazines. (American Nations was also reviewed by the Washington Post on Sunday.)

Thanks much to the magazine's editors for the kind attention!

Washington Post features American Nations

2011-11-20T08:20:00.009-05:00

The Washington Post's review of my new book, American Nations, is on the front of the Outlook section today, with the official two-page "nations" map after the jump. The online version of the review -- by The New Republic's Alec MacGillis -- is up as well.

The inevitable pull quote: "a compelling and informative attempt to make sense of the regional divides in North America in general and this country in particular....Woodard provides a bracing corrective to an accepted national narrative that too often overlooks regional variations..."

I've been delighted with the media attention the book has been receiving, including the Boston Globe, Daily Beast, Christian Science Monitor, Wall Street Journal, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Arizona Republic, Bloomberg, Rolling Stone.com, Maine Sunday Telegram, and Raleigh News & Observer. I've also been able to demonstrate the analytical utility of the paradigm in understanding current political developments in a feature and blog posts at Washington Monthly.

For those of you in northern California and southwestern Oregon, I'll be on Jefferson Public Radio tomorrow morning from 9 to 10 am Pacific. (Yes, everyone else, that's as in the "State of Jefferson.")

Occupy Wall Street's regional strengths and weaknesses

2011-11-18T18:24:00.009-05:00

Interviewers have been asking me what the American Nations paradigm -- that the continent is really divided into eleven "countries," most of them centuries-old -- can tell us about the prospects of the Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party movements.

Analyzing the Tea Party was relatively easy, as they've been engaged in electoral politics from the beginning, creating a wealth of data; my feature in the current issue of the Washington Monthly shows why the movement is doomed to failure in large swaths of the country. The results of last week's off-year elections bolstered the argument.

But the Occupy movement offers much less of a data trail: its newer; it has thus far spurned electoral politics; there's no "OWS caucus" in Congress to track. I've hypothesized that the movement would also face stark regional differences in popularity and leverage but, until today, didn't have any evidence to test the idea.

Today's article at the Washington Monthly's Ten Miles Square blog offers preliminary evidence that OWS is strongest in the very same "nations" where the Tea Party is weakest. But there's a surprise too: OWS appears especially strong in in the Far West, suggesting the (Tea Party-steered) G.O.P. coalition may be vulnerable to fracture. Enjoy the piece, and let me know what you think.

Talking US politics on WGAN, once again

2011-11-16T08:42:00.007-05:00

This morning on WGAN's weekly Eye on Politics segment, former state senator Phil Harriman and I discussed the GOP presidential nominees, the future of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and Gov. Paul LePage's proposal to drug test welfare recipients. The segment is now up online for those who want to listen to it in non-real time.

Question of the week: will Ethan Strimling return to this show now that he's no longer running for mayor of Portland? And what's with the sudden flurry of public appearances here in Maine by former US Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell?

Talking American Nations on New Books Network

2011-11-15T12:57:00.005-05:00

I was the guest this week on the popular New Books In History Podcast, part of the New Books Network. Its a liberating, long-form format, with over an hour to really talk about the implications of one's book. You can download it at itunes as well.

The host, Marshall Poe, is a former Atlantic staffer who wrote this enjoyable piece in a recent issue of the magazine on his personal odyssey in researching a book on Wikipedia. (He pitched a "big idea" book, but in digging into his subject wound up with -- alas -- a mere book of ideas.)

American Nations in Publishers Weekly, MHQ

2011-11-14T15:09:00.009-05:00

This summer, Publishers Weekly named American Nations to its "Top Ten Politics" list for the Fall season but, oddly enough, no review of the book appeared before publication, as is their usual practice.

Today, though, they've rectified that, with a starred review no less. American Nations' "compelling explanations and apt descriptions will fascinate anyone with an interest in politics, regional culture, or history," PW writes. That makes up not only for the late review, but for misspelling my name. (Curse ye, Bob Woodward, for teaching them thus.)

Also, there's an excerpt of the book in the new issue of MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, for which I'm a frequent contributor. "Colin Woodard casts a new light on the rift in American discourse," MHQ notes, "a split often couched in terms of conservative and liberal, of red states versus blue."

Reminder for southern and midcoast Mainers: I'll be giving my American Nations talk at the Yarmouth Historical Society tonight at 7:30.

Talking American Nations in Yarmouth, Maine, Nov. 14

2011-11-12T08:50:00.006-05:00

I'll be giving my American Nations talk at the Yarmouth Historical Society this Monday evening, November 14, at 7:30. The event - held at the Town Hall Community Room in downtown Yarmouth, Maine - is open to the public. (Books will be available for purchase/signing thereafter, if you find the thesis compelling.) Come if you can.

Also, Nov. 25, I'll be among the many Maine authors signing books at the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance Book Sale at the Portland Public Library. This would be an excellent addition to your Black Friday shopping plans.

I'll be giving my talk again at the Skidompha Library in Damariscotta, Maine at 10 am on December 15, an event sponsored by the Maine Coast Bookshop.

For more on the book, check out last week's review in The Daily Beast, and yesterday's analysis of the 2011 elections at Washington Monthly.

On the 2011 elections, the Tea Party,and the American Nations at Washington Monthly

2011-11-11T13:57:00.009-05:00

For those interested in what the American Nations paradigm might have to say in regards to the results of the 2011 off-year election, please have a look at my blog posting on the topic over at Washington Monthly's Ten Miles Square.

In short: results in Maine, Ohio, and Kentucky indicate that the Tea Party is in trouble not just in the sprawling "nation" I call Yankeedom and its allies -- the topic of my feature in the current print issue of the magazine -- but in the Midlands and Greater Appalachia as well. A Deep Southern political agenda -- and that's what the Tea Party and, foolishly, the governors of Maine, Ohio, and Wisconsin have partially embraced -- is alienating the mainstream in these other regional cultures, none of which embrace the notion that the society should be organized around the interests of an oligarchy.

For more on this, I welcome you -- nay, beg you -- to read the book.

LePage, transparency, and public records

2011-11-10T12:16:00.005-05:00

Governor Paul LePage has pledged to run the most transparent government in Maine history. But he and his staff sometimes have trouble applying it to themselves, even when a request for information or public records would help the governor.

My piece in the new Portland Phoenix describes some of my recent adventures with the governor's staff in this regard, and their efforts of late to make their actions more difficult to track by reducing or concealing much of the paper trail associated with them.

Portland's cruise ship terminal finally complete, but still in the red

2011-11-09T16:50:00.004-05:00

Maine's largest city has finally completed its cruise ship terminal at a cost of nearly $30 million. While political leaders were smiling at the ribbon cutting ceremony, I asked if the facility is paying for itself yet. The answer -- in the new issue of Working Waterfront -- is "not yet."

Its certainly a positive development that, with the "megaberth" completed, proper cruise ships are finally able to use the city-owned terminal. As the article notes, its not clear if it should have been built in the first place.

For more background on Ocean Gateway and the Portland waterfront, start here, and continue here.

American Nations in Christian Science Monitor, News & Observer, the Yukon

2011-11-08T09:30:00.008-05:00

A few more media "hits" for my new book, American Nations:

The Christian Science Monitor reviewed it yesterday, giving it positive marks, though the reviewer was looking for a slightly different book. On Facebook, some of my friends and I played around with crafting the inevitable pull-quote from the review. The reviewer's punchline was: "a fascinating new take on our history – but not enough insight into our future." I suggested editing it to just "a fascinating new take on our history...", but cleverer colleagues suggested "A fascinating new take on our history... insight into our future" and -- my personal favorite -- "‎fascinating...but not enough." In any case, enjoy the review.

Meanwhile, a columnist at the Raleigh News & Observer has used American Nations to demonstrate some of the ironies of the current immigration debate as it relates to the region I call El Norte. Good stuff.

Finally -- and I know you've all been waiting for it -- here's my interview with CBC Radio in Whitehorse, Yukon. Yes, the Yukon.

Daily Beast: American Nations "a true triumph"

2011-11-06T07:05:00.005-05:00

The Daily Beast/Newsweek has just published a glowing review of my new book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.

"[In] offering us a way to better understand the forces at play in the rumpus room of current American politics, Colin Woodard has scored a true triumph," Beast reviewer Steve Kettmann writes. "The key to the book’s effectiveness is Woodard’s skill—and irreverence—in delving into history with no qualms about being both brisk and contrarian....Yankees come off the worst...and Woodard seems particularly aghast at their eagerness to claim the U.S. narrative as their own."

I particularly enjoyed that last bit, as it's indeed true. Yes -- as some Deep Southern sympathizers have pointed out -- I'm from Yankeedom; but what they don't realize is that I'm also a native Mainer and, thus, raised in a regional subculture that was conquered by -- and has remained skeptical of -- the Puritan project, including the seizure of the historical narrative of both the region and the federation. (For more on all this subregional discord, please see my second book, The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators, and The Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier.)

And I certainly don't mind being lumped in with Jon Stewart, who remains far and away the most forthright and insightful political commentator on U.S. television. (Happy to lend a hand, Jon, anytime you need someone on the show.)

American Nations on WAMC, in Slate

2011-11-04T16:35:00.007-04:00

From the Department of American Nations Promotion:

I was a guest this morning on Northeast Public Radio / WAMC's "Roundtable" program, which is broadcast across a great swath of upstate New York, plus western Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont. You can hear this latest American Nations interview online.

Meanwhile, my Washington Monthly feature describing why the Tea Party is doomed to failure over a great swath of the United States has been receiving a bit of attention and commentary, including this plug from Slate, another from Free Flight New Media, and this posting at Daily Kos.

Finally, last week Blogcritics.org ran this review of the book by the elusive Marty Dodge.

Portland mayoral race: Following the Money

2011-11-03T10:07:00.009-04:00

My home city of Portland, Maine is having its first mayoral election in 88 years, the result of a successful ballot referendum and popular disgust with the city council's handling of a proposed development on the Maine State Pier. Fifteen candidates are on the ranked-choice ballot, making it especially difficult for voters to become educated about the would-be mayors.

As regular readers know, I'm a big proponent of following the money in politics, but under current law, mayoral candidates didn't have to file campaign finance disclosures until last Friday evening -- just eleven days before voters go to the polls. (An effort to change this law for future elections has been stalled in Augusta.) Media coverage of the content of those reports has, to date, been focused merely on how much money each candidate raised, rather than from whom these resources came.

My piece in the new Portland Phoenix delves into the leading candidates' donor pools, identifying interest clusters, putting faces to some of the faceless Limited Liability Companies that donated to some candidates, and even ensuring the disclosure of the contributors to a Political Action Committee that thought it wouldn't be revealing such until months after the election. Curious how Ethan Strimling raised such a staggering sum of money? (Hint: Bob Baldacci) Want to know who Jed Rathband's secret admirers are? Curious who backs Nick Mavodones and Michael Brennan? Read on for answers.

One positive development to report: Until recently, my website was the only place you could find electronic copies of Portland campaign finance disclosures. as the city was unwilling or unable to post them itself. That's now changed. Not only is the City Clerk's office posting new returns online within days of them being filed, they've also posted all previous ones back to 2005. (Unfortunately, cities across Maine destroyed older campaign reports on the faulty advice of a mid-level bureaucrat at the Maine State Archives, a story I broke in 2009, which resulted in the the relevant law being changed.) Score another point for transparency.

Finally, if you haven't already, check out the detailed results of the Down East/MPRC poll on the mayoral race. Don't miss the projected round-by-round elimination section in the back. Will be interesting to see how accurate it proves to be.

Maine Turnpike Authority defends board...poorly

2011-11-02T13:04:00.006-04:00

In the October 2011 Down East, I reported on the effort to reform the Maine Turnpike Authority in the wake of a disgraceful expenses scandal and the exposure of other questionable practices at the quasi-public agency.

Although the article concludes that interim director Peter Mills is putting the agency back on track, the MTA's two long-serving board members -- Lucien Gosselin and longtime board chair Gerard Conley -- didn't take to the suggestion that they might have some degree of responsibility for the state of affairs. The result: their letter to the editor you'll find in the current issue of the magazine, one that's remarkable in its slipperiness. You'll find my withering response there too.

The letter suggests Mr. Mills has his work cut out for him. Even in the midst of a debacle of this scale, some of his bosses on the board remain defensive when one might expect contrition.

A side note for Turnpike watchers: among the board's newer members is none other than former Portland mayor Jim Cloutier, a partner at Mr. Conley's law firm, and a man best known to readers of Down East for his questionable role in the Maine State Pier scandal. Also, since the article and letter were produced, Mr. Gosselin has been replaced by Lewiston pol Robert D. Stone.

For more background on the Turnpike, see this earlier article.

Arizona Republic, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on American Nations

2011-10-30T14:41:00.009-04:00

My new book, American Nations, was featured in two major Sunday papers today.

The Arizona Republic carried an OpEd with my byline -- "The great divide" --crafted from excerpts of the book. It lays out the central argument that the U.S. is really a federation of disparate "nations" and always has been and notes that it can only function through compromise at the federal level; that's how the deal between the component regional cultures was brokered.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reviews the book in today's paper, calling it important if not "easy" reading. The reviewer also seems to have misread the "nations" map in the book: the counties that make up the St. Louis metro area are divided between the Midlands and Greater Appalachia, just as the text in the book notes. (Similarly, Chicago is another "border city" straddling the Midlands and Yankeedom.

American Nations on WBAI and CBC and in Portland Daily Sun

2011-10-29T10:50:00.006-04:00

Regular readers of this blog may have tied of hearing about my new book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, but, alas, promoting it is my primary task these days. I'm taking a break to report on Portland, Maine's mayoral election soon, so don't despair.

Yesterday I was the guest on "The Gary Null Show" on New York City's WBAI and simulcast on the the Progressive Radio Network. There's a podcast of the interview segment online.

Today, Maine's Portland Daily Sun has an essay/excerpt of the book as their weekend feature.

Over the past week, I was interviewed by a dozen radio affiliates of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: those in Toronto, Calgary, Winnipeg, Halifax, Charlottetown (PEI), Cape Breton Island (NS), Windsor (ON), Thunder Bay (ON), Kenowa (BC) and, my favorites, Yellowknife (Northwest Territories) and Whitehorse (Yukon). CBC Halifax expanded their piece into the lead feature of their "Mainstreet Nova Scotia" program Wednesday, but at present they don't have it podcasted. [Update, 12/31/11: Here's that podcast as an mp3 download.]

Thanks also to everyone who came to the filled-to-capacity talk I gave at the Maine Historical Society Thursday. I had a great time speaking with you all.

Maine in the making of Yankeedom and the nation

2011-10-25T19:15:00.006-04:00

Yankeedom -- the portions of the country colonized by New Englanders and blessed/cursed with their culture -- encompasses the New England states, upstate New York, Ohio's Western Reserve, most or all of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, P.E.I, and portions of northern Illinois, eastern Iowa, and beyond. They also tried -- but only half succeeded -- to make the West Coast a "New England on the Pacific," literally sending missionaries to "save" the region for Yankees. It's a story of cultural transmission told in my recently released book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.

Within that migration, Mainers sometimes played a key role, particularly where the lumber industry loomed large: Michigan, Minnesota, and coastal Washington state. It's a tale I explore in this month's Down East magazine, and one you can now read online.

Speaking on American Nations, Portland, Oct. 26

2011-10-24T12:03:00.003-04:00

For Southern Mainers who were unable to attend the Oct. 13 launch event, I'm speaking on American Nations this Wednesday, October 26 at the Maine Historical Society in downtown Portland at 7 pm. Do come if you can.

The event is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase and signing for those interested in such.

American Nations has been getting some nice local attention, including a feature in the Maine Sunday Telegram, a recent cover story in the Portland Phoenix, and this segment on WCSH television's 207 program. It's also a #1 bestseller on the Maine Sunday Telegram list this week.

On American Nations in the Maine Sunday Telegram

2011-10-23T07:33:00.009-04:00

Fellow Mainers: I'm the subject of the book feature Q&A in this morning's Maine Sunday Telegram.

Bob Keyes interviews me on how I became interested in cultural regionalism, the reasons for the persistence of our regional cultures, and the fortunate timing, marketing-wise, of the release of American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.

As the piece notes, I'll be speaking about the book in Portland this Wednesday, October 26, at the Maine Historical Society at 7 pm. Come if you can.

The book has been recently featured by Bloomberg, Rolling Stone.com, WashingtonPost.com, the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal, Miller-McCune, Washington Monthly, CBC radio, 207, and as last week's cover story in the Portland Phoenix. Segments with PBS News Hour and NPR's Weekend All Things Considered will be airing soon.

[Update, 13:00: American Nations was also #1 on the Maine Sunday Telegram's Hardcover Nonfiction list. (Lobster Coast was #9 on paperback.) Thanks to Longfellow Books patrons for that.]

Is the Tea Party Doomed? My take in Washington Monthly

2011-10-17T14:01:00.005-04:00

My first feature for Washington Monthly is in the new issue to be released tomorrow, but it's their "sneak preview" article for the month, so it just posted online as well.

The article argues that the Tea Party is doomed to failure in large swaths of the country, making it unlikely to achieve more than fleeting nationwide success. The piece is, of course, informed by the American Nations paradigm. You'll be surprised at the regional character of the movement.

Maine politicos will be interested to know that Tea Party activist and U.S. Senate hopeful Alan Ian Dodge thinks the state movement is collapsing, partly as a result of the debt ceiling debacle.

Fittingly enough, I'm actually in Washington. If you are too and have an interest in American Nations, come to this evening's Zocalo Public Square / Center for Social Cohesion event.

My American Nations essay at Washington Post's Political Bookworm

2011-10-14T19:02:00.003-04:00

My short essay regarding my new book, American Nations, has posted at the Washington Post's Political Bookworm blog.

Apparently quite a few people must be reading the piece -- "The roots of American disunity" -- as the book has surged on Amazon.com. At this writing, I'm pleased to say, it has a better sales rank than Ann Coulter's Moronic -- sorry, I misread that -- Demonic. Now that's a screenshot for the scrapbook.

Speaking on American Nations, Washington, DC, Oct. 17

2011-10-14T11:16:00.003-04:00

For those of you in the U.S. Capital Region, I'll be speaking about American Nations at the ASU Washington Center at DuPont Circle on Monday evening, October 17 at 6pm.

It's an event co-sponsored by Zocalo Public Square and the ASU Center for Social Cohesion. Their series has an enjoyable format: a 30 minute presentation followed by an hour reception at which all audience members are encouraged to engage in conversation with the presenter and each other. This particular event will be introduced by Andres Martinez from the New America Foundation.

The event is open to the public, but they ask you to RSVP online. Come if you can!

American Nations in Portland Phoenix, Miller McCune, Zocalo

2011-10-13T08:45:00.013-04:00

Regular readers of this blog are probably weary of hearing about my new book, American Nations, but I'm out flogging it these days, so brace yourselves....

Today, there's an extensive interview and book excerpt in the Portland Phoenix, where my more time-sensitive coverage of Maine politics usually appears. Thanks to the editors there for their interest. [Update, 10/14/11: Finally saw the print edition, which has American Nations on the cover, with a colorized map of the nations (above) to boot!]

Last night the always refreshing Miller-McCune magazine posted their interview feature on their website. [Update, 10/14/11: This piece was also cross-featured at Real Clear Science.

Yesterday, Zocalo Public Square published my essay on how the existence of the eleven "American Nations" complicates the job of running for president (and why Republicans would indeed be wise to pick Romney over Perry.) Zocalo is co-sponsoring my speaking eve nt in Washington, D.C. this coming Monday (Oct. 17.)

And for those who just haven't gotten their fill, we have a book launch event at the Portland (Maine) Public Library tonight at 6:30. Come on by and say hello. [Update, 10/14/11: Thanks much for all of you who were able to join us!]

Speaking on WCSH/WLBZ's "207"

2011-10-12T08:54:00.003-04:00

I was one of the guests on last night's edition of "207," the interview program produced by Maine's two NBC affiliates, WCSH-6 in Portland and WLBZ-2 in Bangor.

The segment -- in which host Rob Caldwell talks with me about my newly released book, American Nations -- is now online, for those interested.

The station's website makes mention of this Thursday's book launch party here in Portland. Note that this event actually starts at 6:30, not 7 (as once planned.) More details here.

American Nations launch event, Portland, Me., Oct 13

2011-10-10T21:11:00.004-04:00

For those of you in Greater Portland (Maine, that is), we're having a book launch event for American Nations this Thursday, October 13, at 6:30pm at the main branch of the Portland Public Library.

I'll be introducing the book in the auditorium and, thereafter, there will be a reception where Longfellows will be selling books (which I'm happy to sign.) Come if you can!

Thanks to the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance for co-hosting.

If you can't make this event, I'll also be speaking Oct 26 at the Maine Historical Society here in Portland. (And for those in Washington, D.C., I'll be doing an event near you on Monday, Oct. 17.)

American Nations - The Rolling Stone interview

2011-10-06T14:30:00.003-04:00

Rolling Stone interviewed me last week about American Nations. The story -- "Why Americans Can't Just Get Along" -- just posted on the RS Politics Daily section of their website, along with an excerpt from the book.

I've been very appreciative of the attention the book has received in its first week of life, including a five-part series of excerpts by Bloomberg / Business Week and a review in last Sunday's Boston Globe.

Bloomberg's fifth American Nations excerpt....and a nifty map.

2011-10-05T11:55:00.006-04:00

The fifth and final installment of Bloomberg's series of excerpts from my new book, American Nations, posted today. Best of all, it includes this amusing map of the nations, with pop culture flags to boot.

Here's Part IV as well, and a prior post with links to the previous three.

Bloomberg excerpts of American Nations

2011-10-03T09:24:00.005-04:00

Bloomberg has been running a five part series of excerpts from my new book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.

The third installment is up now across their platforms. Previous episodes can be found here and here. The final two will run Tuesday and Wednesday. For reference, they've also been linking to the map on the cover at my website, which has been generating a startling amount of traffic there.

Enjoy. And let me know what you think.

Boston Globe on American Nations

2011-10-02T18:13:00.005-04:00

Today's Boston Sunday Globe has a nice review of my new book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, which was released last Thursday.

The inevitable pull-quote for the paperback: "a smart read that feels particularly timely now, when so many would claim a mythically unified “Founding Fathers’’ as their political ancestors."

Last week, I had the pleasure of presenting American Nations to audiences in Camden and Bangor, and am looking forward to a pair of events here in Portland later this month. Bloomberg continues their five-part series of excerpts tomorrow, and Rolling Stone.com has an interview scheduled to run the following day. Thanks to all for the kind attention and insightful comments.

American Nations is born

2011-09-29T10:18:00.008-04:00

I'm pleased to announce the birth of my fourth book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, which went on sale in stores this morning at a healthy 372 pages.

At midnight, GMT, Bloomberg posted the first of a series of five daily excerpts from the book, for anyone who would like a preview of its thesis.

For those living in Maine, I'll be discussing American Nations in my keynote address at the Bangor Festival of the Book tomorrow evening, September 30. I'll also be at the Portland Public Library (Oct. 13) and Maine Historical Society (Oct. 26).

For readers in the nation's capital, I'll be giving a talk Oct. 17 sponsored by Zocalo Public Square and the Center for Social Cohesion.

[Update, 9/30/2011: Part II of the Bloomberg excerpt series is up across their platforms.]

Speaking on American Nations, Camden, Sept. 27

2011-09-23T12:18:00.006-04:00

My fourth book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America comes out next week. As fortune would have it, I'm doing my first talk and book signing this coming Tuesday, September 27, in Camden, Maine at 4:30.

This worldwide premier is hosted by one of my favorite independent bookstores, Owl & Turtle. Here's some press on it from the local paper there, the C amden Herald (and fellow Village Soup publications.)

Please stop by if you're in the area.

If not, I'll be giving the keynote at the Bangor Book Festival on Sept. 29, staging a launch party at the Portland (Maine) Public Library Oct. 13, and giving talks at the ASU Washington Center in D.C (Oct. 17) and Maine Historical Society Oct. 26. More events as they're confirmed at the book tour page of my website.

Koch Bros. fund enviro lecture series in Down East Maine

2011-09-22T10:45:00.007-04:00

I was intrigued to receive an invite over the weekend to the University of Maine Machias' inaugural Koch Speaker on Environmentalism and Freedom, October 6. It's part of a new lecture series sponsored by the Charles G. Koch Foundation, the philanthropy of the conservative billionaire of the same name, who has been the subject of considerable scrutiny of late.

How did this arrangement come to pass? I explored this for this short piece in the new Portland Phoenix.

With space and time constraints, I left the bigger question open for unaddressed: is it appropriate for a public university to have a lecture series funded by a controversial and politically-engaged organization? If not, why not? If so, where does one draw the line, bearing in mind the academic ideal of being open to a diversity of opinion? Is, say, the John Birch Society an appropriate donor? How about the Church of Scientology? Is it ok, so long as local academics -- not foundation officials -- choose who to invite? Share your thoughts if you have any.

A side note: I requested the grant contract for the series from UMM -- a public university whose documents are public records -- just to be sure there were no unusual strings attached (as there were in the foundation's much larger grant to Florida State University.) Will update here after I read it.

[Update: 9/22/2011: I received the grant documents and associated correspondence from UMM, which handled my request promptly and professionally. They confirm the information imparted to me in interviews and reported in the story.

Correspondence also shows that Dr. Reisman was entirely open with his colleagues about his associations with the Kochs. He sent a May 2011 email to the entire UMM faculty informing them of his "growing relationship with the Charles G. Koch Foundation" and an upcoming trip to a Koch industries forum in Witchia on "management philosophy," for which he would receive (from the foundation) travel expenses and an honorarium.

In terms of transparency, Reisman and UMM both deserve gold stars.

The speaker series was originally to be entitled "Sustainability and the Road to Serfdom: Can Environmentalism and Freedom Co-Exist?," and was scheduled for last spring. It March, however, Reisman decided to postpone the program, largely because Gov. LePage's regulatory reform initiative had "heated up" Maine's environmental policy world. Reisman also decided the series should berecast with "a broader and perhaps less threatening topic." and the Koch foundation concurred.]

Maine: the Olsen affair explored

2011-09-20T20:49:00.011-04:00

This summer, Maine Governor Paul LePage's marine resources commissioner, Norman Olsen, tendered a fiery resignation, accusing his boss of bullying and having declared the state’s largest city to be his enemy, and his colleagues of having been involved in gross mismanagement and, perhaps, smothering his investigations. The governor's staff wasn't agile enough to fire back effectively, but Republican pundit Matt Gagnon helped them out by requesting scheduling documents that appeared to undermine Olsen's case. There were allegations and counter-allegations, and then the press lost interest.

So what really happened?

My piece in the current issue of Down East asks that question, and taps on additional public records to try to piece together a more complete picture of what occurred.

A side note: While researching this piece, I requested a range of public documents pertinent to determining whose version of events was correct. In a matter of days, the governor's office released perhaps half of the documents, promising to issue the remainder as soon as natural resources advisor Carlisle McLean returned from vacation (and after my piece was off to the publisher.) Alas, nearly two months later they have failed to do as promised, despite regular prodding from your correspondent. One hopes this is not because the remaining documents will contradict their version of events -- presumably they do not -- but sadly it may take legal intervention to compel the governor's staff to turn them over. Stay tuned for further developments.

More encouraging in regards to the governor's intentions, the report Mr. Olsen ordered has in fact been released, apparently without interference.

For a little additional context, here's my prior interview with Mr. Olsen in Working Waterfront.

Talking with National Geographic about how pirates talked

2011-09-19T16:30:00.005-04:00

It's Talk Like A Pirate Day again, and everyone is coming up with their best effort at "arrrr" puns. (Today's leader: Where do pirates like to go on vacation? Arrrrrrgentina!)

But how did pirates really talk? And did some of them really say "Arrr"?

National Geographic interviewed me on the topic this morning, on account of my having written The Republic of Pirates. Their piece is now up on their site for those who arrrrrr interested.

Bangor Book Festival keynote, Sept. 30

2011-09-17T12:17:00.006-04:00

My fourth book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America will be released later this month by Viking Press. I've got a number of book talks in the works both in Maine and "abroad" for those of you who want to learn more about it.

One of the first: I'll be delivering the Bud Knickerbocker Keynote Address at the Bangor Book Festival here in Maine on Friday, September 30 at 7 pm at the Bangor Opera House. (Others coming up in Maine: Sept. 27 at Owl & Turtle in Camden; Oct. 13 at the Portland Public Library; and Oct. 26 at the Maine Historical Society in Portland; more on those shortly.)

Here's the press release from the Festival:

Bangor Book Festival announces list of 2011 Featured Authors

July 1, 2011

BANGOR – Award-winning journalist and author Colin Woodard will headline the Fifth Annual Bangor Book Festival, September 30-October 1, 2011, in downtown Bangor, the Festival Committee announced today. Joining Woodard for the annual Festival will be 33 more Maine and Maine-connected writers and illustrators, whose work includes fiction, nonfiction, poetry, historical fiction, young adult and children’s books, sports and nature writing, mysteries, memoirs, travel writing and creative writing instruction.

“We are thrilled with this year’s lineup of wonderful Maine authors,” said Barbara McDade, Director of the Bangor Public Library and Festival Co-Chair. “For this fifth year of the Festival, we will have more speakers than in any other year. Everyone will be able to find something of interest.”

Featured authors and illustrators will include Charlotte Agell, James Babb, Barbara Baig, Crash Barry, Ellen Booraem, Sarah Braunstein, Thomas Burby, Toni Buzzeo, Melissa Coleman, Susan Conley, Paul Doiron, Kathleen Ellis, Rebecca Emberly, Richard Foerster, Ardeana Hamlin, Hannah Holmes, Shonna Milliken Humphrey, Jennifer Jacobson, Carrie Jones, Margy Burns Knight, Kelly McClymer, Janet Mendelsohn, Thomas R. Moore, Dave Morrison, Eva Murray, Anne Sibley O’Brien, Maria Padian, Dawn Potter, Van Reid, Caitlin Shetterly, Christina Tree, Catherynne Valente, and Wade Zahares.

Keynote Speaker Colin Woodard is the author of four books, including The Lobster Coast: Rebels, Rusticators, and the Struggle for a Forgotten Frontier and American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, to be released this fall. A Maine native and an award-winning journalist, he has reported from more than 50 countries and is currently a foreign correspondent for The Chronicle of Higher Education and The Christian Science Monitor, and is a contributing editor at Down East magazine.

A major partner for the first time this year is the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. “We’re truly proud to support this exceptional line-up of authors ,” said Joshua Bodwell, Executive Director of the 35-year-old literary arts nonprofit. “It’s been a banner year for books in Maine, and this quickly growing festival is a great way to celebrate that!”

The 2011 Festival is funded in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional sponsors of the 2011 Festival include the Maine Humanities Council, the University of Maine’s Fogler Library, the City of Bangor, the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation, Cengage, and others.

For more information, please contact the Festival at info@bangorbookfest.org, or c/o Bangor Public Library, 145 Harlow St., Bangor, ME 04401; 207/947-8336.

See you at the Festival!

Talking U.S., Maine politics on WGAN...again

2011-09-14T20:09:00.006-04:00

This morning I filled in again on WGAN's weekly "Eye on Politics" segment opposite former state Senator Phil Harriman. Today's topics: Rick Perry, Merck, and HPT vaccines; Anthony Weiner's old district in Queens, New York goes Republican for the first time since 1923; the Congressional prospects of President Obama's jobs bill; and early polling on the effort to restore same-day voter registration in Maine.

The segment is now online, for the die hard political junkies among you. Twelve minutes you'll never get back, but I promise it's more informative and intelligent than that peculiar crying Mormon they have on later in the day.

Orwellian moment: Maine Gov's office claims Ann Robinson not an advisor

2011-09-13T20:09:00.024-04:00

Preti Flaherty lobbyist Ann Robinson has been showing up frequently in my reporting this year. She served as co-chair of Gov. Paul LePage's transition team, compiled his much-maligned "Phase I" regulatory reform agenda, and serves as his key regulatory reform advisor, even as she maintains her day job as a corporate lobbyist. She also serves on the committee that recommends judicial nominees to the governor and -- as expected -- was just nominated to the board of MPBN by the governor.

This past week she's been under additional pressure from Democrats, after my Phoenix story revealed her to be the new state co-chair for the controversial American Legislative Exchange Committee. So, not surprisingly, the Bangor Daily News picked up on the story today, asking if it matters that corporations are writing many of the bills legislators introduce in Augusta.

But halfway down the story is a real shocker. Governor LePage's spokseperson, Adrienne Bennettt, told the News that despite "Democrats' claims," Ann Robinson is not an advisor to the governor!

Oh, really?

That's not what LePage's deputy chief of staff, Kathleen Newman, told the Portland Press Herald a few months ago. "Ann is a trusted adviser and friend to the governor and to our policy team," Newman said Feb. 11. "We appreciate her efforts to date and her commitment to continue to advise and assist the administration going forward as we seek to create clear, reasonable guidelines for businesses to grow and prosper while protecting our precious natural resources."

That's not what Bennett's old boss, communications director Dan Demeritt, told me in early February. "Ann Robinson is still advising the governor on regulatory reform matters," he said.

Indeed, that's not even what Ann Robinson's own web page at Preti Flaherty says today. "Ann served as Co-Chair of Governor Paul LePage's transition team, with specific responsibility for policy and regulatory review, and continues to serve in an advisory capacity," it reads.

Shame on Ms. Bennett for telling such a whopper. And shame on Eric Russell and his editors at the News for letting it go to print unchallenged.

[Update, 9/16/11: The governor's office has failed to respond to my questions about Robinson and ALEC, but in a round-about way I've obtained their response to this blog post. Dan Billings, LePage's in-house counsel and shadow communications chief, wrote Mike Tipping to complain that this blog post (cross-posted at Maine Politics) is misleading because it failed to note that Ms. Bennett had asserted that Robinson isn't a regular advisor to LePage.

Of course, as I wrote Billings, Robinson's "regularity" is irrelevant. LePage's office -- which describes her as a "trusted adviser and friend" -- allowed her to essentially write the governor's Phase I regulatory agenda. She presumably is still advising the governor on legislative and regulatory issues, even as she maintains her day job as a registered lobbyist for companies with interests in these issues and serves as ALEC's state co-chair. Billings' complaint appears entirely semantic in substance; Bennett is dismissing criticism on the grounds that Robinson isn't really an advisor when she actually is one, or at least was until, well, now.

Which raises another ambiguity: Bangor Daily News reporter Eric Russell has indicated in the comments section here that his understanding of the conversation he had with Bennett was not that she was asserting the regularity or irregularity of Robinson's status, but that she is not an advisor at this time.

So I posed the following questions to Billings to get to the bottom of things:

1. Is Robinson still an "irregular" advisor to the governor?

2. If not, when did she cease being one? Why the change in status?

3. How long has Robinson been affiliated with ALEC, beyond her new role as state co-chair?

4. Does your office have any conflict of interest concerns in regards to either her role at ALEC or her simultaneously compiling the governor's legislative agenda and being the registered lobbyist of interested parties?

He hasn't responded, but I'll let you know if he does.]

Maine's new ALEC co-chair: the gov's favorite lobbyist

2011-09-07T20:33:00.010-04:00

The American Legislative Exchange Council is one of the most powerful -- and secretive -- lobbying entities in the country, a channel for corporations to literally write state laws for willing or naive legislators without anyone being any the wiser.

Or at least that was the case until last month, when many of their confidential members-only documents were leaked to the world wide wonderland. Journalists are just starting to dig into the model bills, donor lists, and rolls of participating legislators posted at ALECexposed.org by the Center for Media and Democracy.

But, as I report in tomorrow's Portland Phoenix, a fresh leak has added a new twist for Mainers. It shows that the new state co-chair for Maine is none other than Ann Robinson, the Preti Flaherty superlobbyist and gubernatorial advisor who has been at the center of several stories I've covered this year, including "LePage's Secret Puppeteers" and "The LePage Files."

And for you political insiders out there, here, as a blog-only DVD extra, are the relevant pages from the leaked source document (the agenda of ALEC's August meeting in New Orleans.) [PDF]

[Update, 9/8/11, 14:00 EST: Maine Democrats put out this press release, pressuring the governor's office to disclose ALEC ties.]

[Update, 9/10/11: For those curious who else has participated in ALEC, Dirigo Blue recently reminded its readers that House Majority Leader Andre Cushing (R-Hampden) was at their annual meeting in New Orleans.]

Reviewing "Seated By The Sea"

2011-08-29T08:35:00.005-04:00

For the academic historians out there, my first review for a proper peer-reviewed journal can be found in the September 2011 issue of The New England Quarterly. The subject: Seated By The Sea, Michael Connolly's new history of the port of Portland, Maine in general and its stevedores in particular.

For those who don't have access to an academic library, the summary: Connolly tackles an important and long-neglected topic, and does an excellent job assembling the (largely Irish) stevedores' history, though his treatment of the associated history of the port has some weaknesses.

Maine: Saving the Turnpike

2011-08-22T10:23:00.012-04:00

Earlier this year, scandal engulfed the Maine Turnpike Authority, whose books and records had finally been exposed to public scrutiny. As a result, the quasi-state agency's longtime head, Paul Violette, has resigned and is now the target of a criminal investigation by the Attorney General's office and a nearly half-million dollar law suit by the authority itself. Independent investigators from the state's Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability (OPEGA) also identified a troubling relationship between the Authority and their lifelong contract engineering firm, HNTB, and noted a surplus would likely never be produced for the state coffers under the definitions then in place.

So can the Turnpike Authority be turned around? That's the question I explore in the new issue of Down East, which you can now read online. The short answer: it looks very promising, though some critics allege the rot goes higher and deeper than Mr. Violette.

The Turnpike Authority doesn't like the piece, telling us that the board of directors should receive the credit for the reforms enacted under interim director Peter Mills, but none of the responsibility for what occurred under Violette. A convenient arrangement, to be sure, if you can convince third parties of its legitimacy.

Readers may wish to read the OPEGA report for themselves [pdf]. (The agency has a growing library of similar reports on other government-ish programs and agencies available here.) For an especially aggressive piece of spin, check out the Turnpike Authority's Jan. 21 press release entitled "OPEGA Report Reflects Positively on Maine Turnpike Authority." [pdf] Wowza!

Maine: LePage to nominate favorite lobbyist to MPBN board

2011-08-18T08:19:00.006-04:00

Maine Gov. Paul LePage is no fan of the Maine Public Broadcasting Network, which operates Maine's only statewide network of television and radio stations. On the campaign trail he expressed a desire -- on MPBN cameras -- to punch the network's State House correspondent. In office he tried to zero out state funding for the broadcaster.

Now he has his first chance to nominate someone to MPBN's governing board. As I report in the new Portland Phoenix, his first choice is none other than Ann Robinson, the corporate lobbyist who already serves as a trusted advisor and a member of the panel he uses to find judicial nominees.

As readers of this blog well know, Robinson has also overseen the compilation of the governor's regulatory reform agenda -- past and future -- including the cutting-and-pasting of language from industry and corporate memos into the proposals LePage submitted to legislators. That she does this while remaining the registered lobbyist of many interested parties apparently doesn't trouble the governor, whose press secretary has failed to respond to requests for comment on this point.

Robinson isn't alone. Another Preti attorney, Carlisle McLean, serves as LePage's natural resources advisor. Pierce Atwood corporate lobbyist Patricia Aho currently heads the Department of Environmental Protection. But at least McLean and Aho had to give up their day jobs.

[Update, 9/13/11: As expected, LePage has indeed nominated Robinson to the MPBN board. A full list of his board and commission nominations can be downloaded here. [pdf]

Starred review for American Nations from Kirkus

2011-08-12T15:46:00.005-04:00

Kirkus Reviews has given my forthcoming book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, a starred review. The full text posted on their website today, although non-subscribers will have to wait until the print edition comes out later this month to see it for free.

In June, Publisher's Weekly included American Nations in their Top Ten Politics list for the fall season. I, of course, hopes this bodes well for the forthcoming launch.

Book tour details will be forthcoming soon here.

The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Torture

2011-08-11T15:31:00.008-04:00

My latest feature in MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History on the rise, fall, and rebirth of torture by military forces just posted online. You'll find it on the news stands next week as well.

It tells the unlikely history of torture, which was all but abandoned by the west as a state-sponsored act in the mid-to-late 19th century, but came back with a vengeance in the 20th and early 21st. Military forces -- Japanese, German, Soviet, French, American -- adopted torture as a matter of operational policy. Part of the reason: the changing face of war itself, as counterinsurgencies, revolutions, and civil wars blurred the definitions of legitimate fighters and often boosted the value of coerced information.

A history of torture, as it were, from ancient times to the present. As the television anchors forewarn: this dispatch contains some disturbing images.

Talking US, Maine politics on WGAN

2011-08-03T08:12:00.004-04:00

This morning I filled in on WGAN's weekly "Eye on Politics" segment opposite former state Senator Phil Harriman. To my surprise, I enjoyed the fast-paced format.

The segment is already online if you want to review or pan my performance.

LURC, Democracy and Developers in Maine's North Woods

2011-07-21T22:28:00.011-04:00

This past session, legislators contemplated eliminating the state agency that regulates development in Maine's unorganized territories, a vast region of commercial forests and undeveloped lakes, streams, rivers, and ponds that encompasses roughly half the surface area of Maine. Proponents of this approach say land use and development policy should be devolved to the counties as a matter of local control. Critics argue that the Land Use Regulation Commission should be reformed, not eliminated, or the future of the largest contiguous forest this side of the Mississippi will be dim indeed.

I explored the issue for my latest piece in Down East, which has been in subscribers' hands for a week or so, but just posted online. As you'll see, the facts generally support those who wish to keep LURC around - as do the county commissioners in that most unorganized of counties, Piscataquis, the longtime head of the Sportsmen's Alliance of Maine, and the Republican legislator who helped create LURC some four decades ago.

Two documents mentioned in the article that may be of interest to Maine's political class: the memo from Haynes and Gardner from which the governor lifted his proposal to rezone 30% of the North Woods for development; and the minutes of the meeting between Sen. Raye, timberland owners, and the commissioners of the eight affected counties where the initiative to eliminate LURC was fleshed out. Enjoy.

Gov. Paul LePage and Republican legislative leaders will be appointing a special commission to look into the issue this summer and fall and report back to the legislature with their findings.

[Update, 7/31/2011: I've reposted the Haynes and Gardner memo with the missing page included.]

The LePage Files, Volume I

2011-07-21T05:37:00.007-04:00

Maine Governor Paul LePage's regulatory reform agenda was created by lifting entire passages from memos received by favored lobbyists and industry groups, confidential administration dossiers reveal, suggesting he and his staff made little attempt to shape policies themselves.

The dossiers, obtained via a Freedom of Access Act request, also indicate some of the governor's priorities going forward, including measures targeting striking workers and Maine's participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Who wanted to weaken air quality standards? Who inserted language to reduce all environmental laws to the weaker federal standards? Who wants the same done with civil rights and restaurant tip sharing laws? These answers and many more are in my cover story in this week's Portland Phoenix.

I requested the documents back in March, after the governor's then-communications director, Dan Demeritt, refused to answer questions about the origins of controversial elements of the governor's infamous "Phase I" regulatory reform agenda, much of which was subsequently rejected by the Republican-controlled legislature. They provide a detailed look into how LePage formulates policy and whom he sees himself as representing, issues I've written about in two previous Phoenix stories, "LePage's Secret Bankers" and "LePage's Secret Puppeteers."

Also today, take note of the blistering accusations leveled against LePage by his commissioner for marine resources, who resigned after allegedly being ordered to please discrete interests in the industry. Among the serious charges is that LePage refused to help groundfishermen because they are concentrated in Portland, a city that is "against me," and proposed creating another port somewhere else in the state. (Maine media watchers will not be surprised to learn the Sun Journal's Steve Mistler broke this story as well.)

[Update, 7/21/2011, 1358: Maine's Majority -- seeing a thematic link between these two stories -- has put out this press release charging "LePage must answer" for his cozy relationships at his Dover-Foxcroft "capital for a day" event.]

Maine politics: Raye for Transparency; Crafts in the Clear

2011-07-18T14:34:00.009-04:00

Two updates from Maine political stories I've been following:

Raye for Transparency: In my last Working Waterfront column, I called attention to a critical shortcoming in our state's lawmaking process: the relative inaccessibility of public testimony and supporting documentation submitted to legislative committees to influence their stand on proposed laws.

Senate President Kevin Raye (R-Perry) sent me a note this weekend saying he and the senate chair of the Government Oversight Committee, Roger Katz (R-Augusta), had seen the piece and agreed that these materials should be available online. He said they would ask David Boulter, Executive Director of the Legislative Council, to add this item to the agenda for the council's August meeting.

"As we consider ways to make the legislative process more efficient and transparent, I want to explore the feasibility of making electronically available to the public not only written testimony before legislative committees but also the memos prepared for committees by [the Office of Policy and Legal Analysis] recapping the information received during public hearings," Sen. Raye wrote. "Both play a very significant role in how committee members perceive and handle bills."

That's one of the many things I like about my native state: when common sense problems get identified -- even in a modest setting -- it's not that uncommon for our political leaders to take corrective action.

Crafts in the Clear: While covering Rep. Dale Crafts' (R-Lisbon) effort to pass a law to help the infamous egg magnate Jack DeCoster, I became curious as to the legislator's motivations, particularly following his giving erroneous testimony before his fellow legislators, both at the labor committee and, later, the house floor. Was Mr. DeCoster a major donor? Certainly not to Crafts' own campaign, as he is a clean elections candidate, but what about to his political action committee, the Working People for Hope and Change PAC?

As Dirigo Blue also noticed, Rep. Crafts' PAC raised a suspiciously large quantity of funds from small (thus, unreportable) donors in a short period of time: almost $7000 in a little over four months, all from contributions of less than $50. Did a relatively green legislator from a rural, not particularly affluent district, who hadn't had to build a fundraising apparatus of his own really manage to get some 140 people to donate to his obscure PAC (which funneled most of it on to Sen. Douglas Smith's Still Fed Up With Taxes PAC)?

The answer is yes., he did exactly that.

I asked the State Ethics Commission to review Rep. Crafts' PAC contributions to ensure they really did come from small donors. Officials there met with Crafts who, indeed, produced photocopies of the individual, $49 checks from small donors, which accounted for all but $122 of the PAC's funds. Let the record show that Crafts is an effective retail fundraiser. Whatever his motivations for helping DeCoster, PAC donations isn't among of them.

Talking Maine "culture clashes" on History Channel

2011-07-11T09:09:00.005-04:00

Brian Unger and the History Channel's How the States Got Their Shapes crew were in town last summer putting together an episode on "culture clashes" within various states (a topic I delve into in great detail in my forthcoming American Nations.) The resulting episode is apparently currently running on The History Channel. It's also currently available online at their site.

I haven't had a chance to watch it yet, but they were in Maine exploring the "two Maines" hypothesis. Readers of The Lobster Coast will not be surprised to learn I argued that, yes, there's a culture clash, but that it's not geographic, but cultural in nature, fueled by Maine's post-colonial relationship with Massachusetts Bay and centuries of attendant resentments and conflicts between "natives" and people "from away." The latter group is more dominant in the "have" part of Maine -- essentially Congressional District 1 -- thus, the mistaken notion that there is an actual geographic divide, the way there is in Maryland, Texas, or Oregon. Will be interested to see what comes across in the episode!

[Update, 7/13/11: Watched it. Fun segment, though I disagree with the assumption that the split is between the coast and interior (Washington County is absolutely the "other Maine") or that the "native" culture of these regions are fundamentally at odds with one another. Waldo County in, say, 1965, was probably poorer than Piscataquis or Aroostook, so in broad historical terms, the split is an illusion. But explaining this would, indeed, make for pedantic and boring national television!]

Talking tidal power on PRI's Living on Earth

2011-07-09T10:56:00.010-04:00

I've been covering the infant tidal power industry -- which happens to be taking shape here in the Gulf of Maine region -- for several years now. Last month, perhaps the world leader in the field -- Ocean Renewable Power Co. of Portland -- towed their prototype turbine down from Eastport to show off to the public and the media.

Public Radio International's Living On Earth covered the event, and interviewed me thereafter for some of the context. The segment is airing week on public radio stations nationwide and is up online at PRI's website.

For some of my previous coverage of the tidal industry, start with my Christian Science Monitor and Down East features.

Not so public public testimony at Maine's legislature

2011-07-08T11:45:00.005-04:00

One lesson of the DeCoster bill scandal: there's not enough transparency in regards to the public testimony given before Mainers' elected representatives at the State House.

The only way to obtain written testimony submitted at legislative committee hearings by stakeholders, lobbyists, and other interests is to drive to Augusta, find the responsible clerk, and borrow a manila file long enough to make photocopies. Why, one might ask, are these things not posted online as PDFs, just as their equivalents everywhere from the committees of the City of Portland to those of the United States Congress?

I probe this question in my latest Parallel 44 column in Working Waterfront, available online.

Publisher's Weekly: American Nations makes Top Ten Politics books this fall

2011-06-30T15:40:00.005-04:00

Publisher's Weekly has put out their Fall 2011 preview edition, and has included my forthcoming American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America to their Top Ten Politics books of the season.

Normally you have to subscribe to read PW's features online, but through midnight today, June 30, 2011, you can follow instructions to read this one for free. You don't even have to give out any information.

American Nations is in good company. The other nine books include forthcoming titles from Thomas Frank, Thomas Friedman, Stephen Cohen, Lawrence Lessig, and William Arkin. Viking Penguin releases the book on Sept. 29, and I'll be giving the keynote on it's subject matter at the Bangor Book Festival the following evening here in Maine.

The Intelligence of Beasts

2011-06-29T19:34:00.004-04:00

Animal cognition studies have long focused on primates, in part on account of the assumption that the smartest creatures sharing Earth must be the ones most closely related to us. But, as my feature in the new issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education reveals, that's started to change.

Recent years have seen remarkable discoveries in regards to the mental abilities of dogs, dolphins, crows, elephants and other species not closely related to ourselves. That's changed how researchers think about the evolutionary pressures that foster higher intelligence and, for some, how they think about our place in life's great pecking order. The piece -which ran in the Chronicle Review section -- is freely available online.

Chronicle subscribers may enjoy my previous story on canine intelligence research, filed from Hungary in 2005.

Republic of Pirates TV project sold to NBC

2011-06-26T10:15:00.009-04:00

I am pleased to see news accounts stating that a potential television series based on my book, The Republic of Pirates, has been sold to NBC by Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald. Co-written by Jim Hart (Hook, Contact, Dracula) and Amanda Wells and executive produced by Parkes/MacDonald (Gladiator, Men In Black, Minority Report), Ted Gold and Tom Fontana (Oz, Homicide: Life on the Streets, St. Elsewhere), the drama is apparently titled -- to my pleasure -- Republic of Pirates. Deadline.com broke the news and these details with this exclusive story Thursday evening.

Deadline reports it is the first drama buy for this development cycle by the new president of creative at NBC, Bob Greenblatt (Six Feet Under). As fans of the book know, Repu blic of Pirates tells the true story of the greatest pirate gang of all time, the golden age pirates who operated out of the Bahamas between 1715 and 1720 and are responsible for nine-tenths of all of our pirate pop culture imagery. The gang -- which included Blackbeard, Sam Bellamy, Charles Vane, Calico Jack Rackham, Mary Read, Anne Bonny, and the "gentleman pirate" Stede Bonnet -- founded a rogue state based at Nassau and, for a time, severed the commerce of three empires and threatened their colonies with dislocation, invasion, and rebellion.

For those wanting to learn more about these pirates, the book is available in hardcover, paperback, Kindle, Nook, audiobook, Spanish and Danish editions. Links to all can be found at this page on the Republic of Pirates website.

Maine: Fun with Fireworks, Chemicals, and Friends

2011-06-24T09:52:00.014-04:00

The Maine legislature is close to enacting a bill that would legalize the sale, possession and use of consumer fireworks, a measure backed by the LePage administration, but opposed by the State Fire Marshall, the Maine Medical Association, and the Maine State Federation of Firefighters on public safety grounds.

Why is the governor supporting fireworks sales, even to the point of preventing his Fire Marshall from offering testimony to lawmakers? A cynic might check who the fireworks industry's principal lobbyist is here in Maine. A non-cynic might be crestfallen to discover that, yes, Preti Flaherty's Ann Robinson has been officially representing them since March.

Ms. Robinson, Maine politicos will know, has the good fortune to serve as Gov. LePage's special advisor on regulatory reform, even as she's paid by various corporate interests to lobby on the policies she is literally writing for the governor and, by extension, legislators. She also served as the co-chair of LePage's transition team, heading the creation of his regulatory reform agenda, which included items of direct benefit and interest to Preti's clients.

Meanwhile, the longtime principal lobbyist for the chemical industry, Patricia Aho, has just been promoted from Deputy Commissioner of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to Acting Commissioner, filling the seat occupied by developer Darryl Brown, whose own conflicts of interest forced his resignation.

Ms. Aho has presumably "deregistered" as a lobbyist by now, but it remains to be seen if her primary allegiance will be to the public for whom she now formally serves or the industrial interests she worked for as recently as December 29th. Early indications are not encouraging: the Environmental Health Strategy Center this week accused Ms. Aho of presiding over internal changes at DEP that appear to undermine oversight of her former clients.

(Update, 2:50pm: Documents held by the Ethics Commission indicate Ms. Aho ceased lobbying by 18 January 2011, the day she telephoned to advise staff there of her pending change of employers. )

Europe:managing offshore wind conflicts with fisheries

2011-06-16T15:09:00.005-04:00

The 2011 edition of Island Journal is out, including my feature on how various European countries have negotiated (or failed to negotiate) the inevitable conflicts between offshore wind farms and fishermen. It has particular valence for the Gulf of Maine region, where numerous offshore projects are in the works.

In short, the European experience points to the need to plan ahead and for potential developers to engage the fishing community early on, well before they start thinking about where they want to put their turbine arrays. Countries that haven't done this -- Germany among them -- have regretted it, while those that have (Denmark jumps to mind) have managed conflicts reasonably well.

The article isn't available online, but New Englanders can find Island Journal at better bookstores, or can order a copy from the Island Institute, which publishes it, as well as the monthly newspaper Working Waterfront, where my Parallel 44 column runs.

As an aside, I've covered wind energy for fifteen years now, filing stories from Denmark and Prince Edward Island along the way.

Australia: death threats for climate researchers

2011-06-12T11:12:00.005-04:00

My latest story in The Chronicle of Higher Education is on a disturbing development in Australia, where climate scientists have been subjected to threats of violence and death against themselves and their families. Authorities there consider the threats viable enough to have relocated some researchers to secure buildings and cutting them off from unmediated contact with the public, students, and the press.

Fortunately the environment here in the U.S. has yet to turn so authoritarian and hostile to inconvenient data, as the article describes. The piece - which posted Friday - is online, but if you don't subscribe to the Chronicle, you'll be prompted to do so. [Update: 6/21/2011: It's now freely available.]

I've been a foreign correspondent of the Chronicle for twenty-one years now. My last piece for the paper was on alleged discrimination in Canada against graduates of that country's own doctoral programs.

DeCoster Update: Land O' Lakes has "no involvement" with LD 1207

2011-06-09T13:36:00.010-04:00

For those who've been following the strange story of the "Help Jack DeCoster" bill in the Maine legislature, a couple of breaking items to report:

First, the bill -- LD 1207 -- just passed the Maine house moments ago, 74-68, after its sponsor, Rep. Dale Crafts (R-Lisbon), presented a new argument as to why it should pass. The bill -- which will take away workers' right to unionize at the notorious egg magnates' companies -- is allegedly the only thing standing in the way of DeCoster making a big sale. The Senate will consider the bill shortly.

DeCoster's Quality Egg LLC, Rep. Crafts alleged on the State House floor today, is about to be sold to the Minnesota-based agricultural cooperative Land O' Lakes, Inc., but the deal will supposedly fall apart if LD 1207 is not passed. As the Sun Journal's Steve Mistler reports, Land O' Lakes has unionized facilities elsewhere in the country, which raises questions about the accuracy of Rep. Crafts' assertions. (As previously reported, he gave erroneous testimony on the bill before the labor committee earlier this session.)

I contacted Land O' Lakes to check up on Crafts' assertion. Their director of corporate communications, Jeanne Forbis, responded with a written statement saying the company "does not comment on rumors or speculation in the marketplace." But she added: "we have no involvement with legislation being considered in Maine relating to unionization of agricultural workers."

My follow-up question was if the company has "an interest or a stake" in LD 1207. Ms. Forbis responded by e-mail that they were "not going to go beyond our statement."

[Update, 6/9/2011, 7:05pm: Susan Sharon of MPBN has comment from DeCoster's spokesman, and has included a transcript of their interview at their site. He essentially says there's no imminent deal, but declines to contradict Rep. Crafts directly. Ms. Forbis gave MPBN the same statement that I received.]

[Update, 6/11/2001: The Senate, skeptical perhaps of the whole situation, referred the bill back to the labor committee for further consideration.]

Maine: How the GOP rammed through a massive health insurance overhaul

2011-06-02T16:56:00.007-04:00

The new Portland Phoenix has my cover story on how Maine Republicans railroaded a massive overhaul of our health insurance regime through the State House, and the political fallout that's followed. The majority party sometimes slams a bill through the system faster than anyone can digest it, but rarely do these bills involve such genuine life-and-death issues as those affected by LD1333.

The Phoenix cover artists even created this insurance lobbyist/devil figure to illustrate the piece. Hyperbolic, perhaps, but you have to admit it's eye-catching.

For the policy wonks out there, I did take the time to photograph the testimony submitted for the original April 27 hearing, back when this was but a four-page bill. The points raised for and against the loosening of restrictions on charging higher premiums based on a customer's location, gender, age, or health status, may still be valid in regards to those components of the new law. You can find it here as a 37-megabyte PDF. (Why the legislature hasn't ordered that all committee testimony be scanned and posted online is beyond me.)

Vermont also overhauled their health insurance system last month. The difference: they're going to a single payer model. Will be interesting to see which approach results in the best outcomes for these respective state's people.

Speaking on Maine's history and identity, Freeport, Maine, May 31

2011-05-30T14:47:00.002-04:00

I'll be giving my popular Lobster Coast talk on the past, present, and future of coastal Maine tomorrow night -- Tuesday, May 31 -- at the Freeport Conservation Trust's annual meeting.

The event starts at 7pm and is free and open to the public. It's being held at the Freeport Community Center, 53 Depot St. For more information, contact FCT at freeportconservationtrust@gmail.com or 869-1012.

All of my speaking events are always posted in advance at my website, where you'll also find a running bibliography of my articles, and a good deal more information about my work than you'll care to know.

Maine Yankee nuclear waste - an update

2011-05-28T08:15:00.002-04:00

For those who followed my stories on the storage of high level nuclear waste at the former Maine Yankee nuclear power plant site in Wiscasset, I've got an update in this week's Portland Phoenix.

While reporting this story for Down East, I noticed that the monthly nuclear safety reports issued by the state nuclear safety inspector had stopped being posted back in September 2010. Now some of those reports have posted at the state's website but, as this week's news brief notes, there are some items that call into question the utility of issuing these reports at all.

On Maine TV and radio tonight

2011-05-26T17:08:00.005-04:00

A short programming note, for those of you not already tired of hearing me go on about Maine politics, history, and culture:

Tonight at 10pm, the television stations of the Maine Public Broadcasting Network will be airing Linda Cabot's documentary on the people, crustaceans, and creatures of the Gulf of Maine, From the Bow Seat. I'm one of the featured talking heads on account of Lobster Coast, but you'll also hear from Sherm Stanley, Diane Cowan, Steve Kress and other experts. It airs again Saturday at 11 am.

For Portlanders, at 7:30 tonight, I'll be one of the live guests on WMPG's Big Talk, discussing Maine politics with Kennebec Journal columnist Mike Tipping and Sun Journal state house correspondent Steve Mistler (if he can get a free moment up in Augusta.) I understand a podcast will be available later at Tipping's Maine Politics website.

Salt Institute's faculty resign en masse

2011-05-26T07:46:00.011-04:00

My former colleagues over at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies tell me that the entire faculty resigned last week, including veteran teachers Rob Rosenthal (director of the radio program) and Kate Philbrick (director of photography), who regular readers may remember for their powerful Malaga Island documentary.

I am not an unbiased observer, having headed the writing program during the 2008-2009 academic year. (I left of my own accord to finish my fourth book.) I'm a great believer in Salt's mission (even if the board has had trouble articulating it): cultivating thoughtful, ethical, honest, and technically skilled storytellers through engagement in real documentary projects. In its nearly forty years of existence, Salt students have produced an impressive body of work, and many of its graduates have gone on to big things in the worlds of radio documentary, documentary photography, and narrative journalism. The institution is an asset to Maine and to the wider, endangered world of thoughtful journalism.

Unfortunately, Salt is not without its problems, the most obvious and longstanding being its near-total dependence on student tuition. A continuing mystery among the faculty when I was there was why the board and executive director Donna Galluzzo were resistant to embarking on a focused development effort, or even to recruit board members with professional development experience. Salt, we were told, was not suited to such a campaign. Perhaps opinion has changed in the two years since I taught there, but the underlying cash flow vulnerabilities clearly have not: last year the faculty shrank by nearly half in an effort to cut costs.

There's also the matter of turnover. Of the twelve full- and part-time faculty and staff who worked at the institution when I was there, Ms. Galluzzo is the only one who remains. The board -- currently chaired by Portland Press Herald columnist Bill Nemitz -- might ask themselves if this has been the best outcome for the institution.

[Update, 6/1/2011: The Portland Daily Sun follows up on this story.]

[Update, 7/8/2011: For more on Galluzzo's point of view, there's this from the Portland Phoenix, a story demonstrating the pitfalls of single-source reporting.]

How does Jack DeCoster get away with it?

2011-05-24T18:23:00.007-04:00

For those who've been following my coverage of the infamous egg magnate Jack DeCoster -- and proposed legislation to deny his workers the right to collective bargaining here in Maine -- my story for Down East has just posted over at their website.

As reported here yesterday, the bill in question has lost a key supporter, labor committee co-chair Sen. Chris Rector (R-Thomaston), who is upset that his committee was given less than candid testimony in regards to the DeCoster companies' safety record. The bill was scheduled for a full vote in the Maine House today, but at last report appeared to have been pulled from the line-up.

For those who like to study source materials themselves, there's the August 2010 Food and Drug Administration site inspection report for one of the DeCoster's Iowa farms implicated in the nationwide salmonella outbreak; the Congressional hearings on said outbreak; and Maine Public Broadcasting's report on worker's allegations at DeCoster's Maine farms from this past April 2011.

[Update, 5/25/2011: An additional update to the piece: Mercy for Animals' director of investigations, Daniel Hauff, says DeCoster spokesperson Chris Grimbilas is misinformed about events in Texas (which he put forward as evidence that his companies got the "short end of the stick.")

"No charges or arrests have ever occurred for any Mercy For Animals investigator, as we follow all laws, including recording laws, and use our real information when obtaining employment at factory farms and slaughter facilities," Hauff said.]

Update: DeCoster bill loses key supporter

2011-05-23T14:42:00.008-04:00

Here in Maine, the legislature is in session, and one of the stories I've been following is the fate of a bill to help the infamous Maine-based egg magnate, Jack DeCoster, by denying his workers the right to collectively bargain.

In case you've forgotten, Mr. DeCoster was in the national spotlight last summer, when a massive salmonella outbreak was traced back to his Iowa-based farms, and the national media started piecing together his companies' staggeringly long rap sheet of health, safety, immigration, labor, and environmental violations. I have a story on this in the forthcoming Down East, and wrote about the erroneous testimony given before the Maine legislature's labor committee here at World Wide Woodard last week. [Update, 5/24/2011: my Down East story has posted online.]

Now that bill may be in trouble. The chair of the labor committee, Sen. Chris Rector (R-Thomaston), was apparently not pleased to learn that DeCoster's companies' recent record in Maine isn't as sterling as legislators were led to believe. "I have changed my position and am opposing the bill," he told me this morning. "The testimony we received was not full and complete. We did not get the whole story."

Sen. Rector said DeCoster's allegedly respectable OSHA record was "critically important" to the decision to back the bill, LD 1207, which passed the labor committee on a 7-6 party line vote. "To discover that that was not really the case have me great pause." He said he'd be working to defeat the bill in one of a variety of ways. He also noted that, unlike Congress, legislators lack research staff and rely on committee testimony when considering legislation.

This raises another issue: unlike, say, the committees of the Portland City Council, the legislative committees don't post online the (usually written) testimonies they receive so that journalists and others might have an opportunity to scrutinize them and, perhaps, point out falsehoods. Indeed, staff apparently don't have access to scanners to digitize documents, so obtaining records of testimony is difficult, and paper files are often missing submissions. Time, perhaps, to join the 21st century and post PDFs of everything online.

The Real Pirates of the Caribbean

2011-05-21T17:07:00.003-04:00

The latest installment of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has just been released, and introduces Blackbeard as a character. My last book, The Republic of Pirates, reconstructed Blackbeard's life story from original archival sources, along with those of other members of the notorious pirate gang that ever sailed, a group that included "Black Sam" Bellamy, Charles Vane, the gentleman pirate Stede Bonnet.

As a result, I'm often asked about the extent to which the Disney films draw on reality. While I haven't had a chance to see the film as of yet, these were my thoughts in The Christian Science Monitor on how Pirates of the Caribbean III stacked up against the pirates on which it is unconsciously based.

I was also interviewed for this story in tomorrow's Boston Sunday Globe, on why Bellamy could not have built a fort in easternmost Maine, as suggested by the General History of the Pyrates, the 1724 tome upon which much of our pirate myth and legend is based. (The Globe writer left out the other part of my position: that a pirate gang probably did build some sort of temporary base in Machias, it just wasn't Bellamy's.)

For more on pirates, consider visiting my Republic of Pirates website.

Jack DeCoster, Maine legislators, and faulty testimony

2011-05-18T16:07:00.013-04:00

As I reported a few weeks ago in the Portland Phoenix, the infamous egg magnate Austin "Jack" DeCoster has some friends in the Maine state legislature, which has been considering a law to help out his companies. That initiative may get voted on as early as today.

I have a magazine piece about all this in the forthcoming issue of Down East, but readers won't see that until after the legislature votes on L.D. 1207, an act that will free Mr. DeCoster's companies from the worry that their workers might one day unionize. The Down East article sheds light on the question many have about Mr. DeCoster: how does he keep getting away with it? [Update: 5/24/2011: the Down East story is now online.] But there are a couple timely details to report straightaway.

First, when members of the legislature's Labor Committee met to consider the bill, they received a remarkable amount of erroneous testimony. The bill's sponsor, Rep. Dale Crafts (R-Lisbon), a labor attorney hired by the company to "investigate" its own record, and two company officials told the legislators that the company had had a clean record in Maine for ten to fifteen years, and suggested, stated, or implied that no significant problems had been turned up by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (or OSHA).

A few minutes on Google reveals this not to be the case. In reality, DeCoster's Maine operations have been fined by OSHA multiple times over the past decade for serious and repeat violations of workplace safety and other issues. These include $344,210 in June 2002 for a range of serious workplace safety infractions; $108,500 in August 2004 for "willful, repeat and/or serious violations"; and $150,000 in August 2008 for a "disregard for basic, commonsense safety procedures and employee protections [that] is as astonishing as it is unacceptable."

This, of course, leaves aside far more serious transgressions by Mr. DeCoster's companies in other states, including responsibility for a salmonella outbreak that sickened over 1900 people and triggered the recall of more than half a billion eggs. It also ignores fines for animal cruelty and law suits by neighbors over the past decade here in Maine.

I gather that it's not illegal to give false testimony before the legislature, which means legislators ought to spend a few minutes on the Internet checking out what they've been told.

[Update, 5/23/2011: As a result of this report, Sen. Rector says he is withdrawing his support for the bill.]

Eastern Maine: the Kitty Hawk of Tidal Power

2011-05-16T20:27:00.003-04:00

The Bay of Fundy has the world's highest tides, so perhaps it's not surprising that a new and more promising generation of tidal energy generating devices is being tested there. But within the moon-wracked estuary -- most of which is in Canada -- it's a company in eastern Maine that's become the apparent front-runner, beating out older, larger European competitors.

My story in the new weekly print edition of The Christian Science Monitor has the details on the Ocean Renewable Power Company, their tests to date, and what the Fundy tides did to their competition. It's also just come up online, for the cellulose averse among you.

Two novels present Maine as it is

2011-05-14T22:38:00.007-04:00

In my bimonthly Working Waterfront column, I discuss two new novels that seek to present Maine as it is, rather than as it should be: Jim Nichols' Hull Creek (Down East Books) and Crash Berry's Sex, Drugs, and Blueberries (Maine Misadventures). The piece is in the new issue, out last week, and just posted online. Read and enjoy.

And, while on the topic of books, my wife and I have the first-ever-signed-by-author copy of The President is a Sick Man (Chicago Review Press), the new book from Matthew Algeo. Mainers may remember him as a past host of MPBN's Maine Things Considered, Americans as a past reporter for American Public Media's Marketplace, and readers everywhere as the author of Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure. My wife's had time to read it and gave a thumbs up.

A hopeful sign for Maine politics

2011-05-11T08:57:00.013-04:00

Mainers have been justly proud of their political culture which, compared to other parts of the country, has been remarkably civil, featuring lawmakers who often seem more interested in finding solutions that help the state's people, than getting caught up in partisan death matches, hyperbolic assertions, outright lies, and appeals to humanity's worst instincts. Augusta has many problems, to be sure, but nothing like those in Albany, Sacramento, and Washington, D.C.

But in recent years the worst pathologies of national politics -- elections awash in a sea of soft, difficult-to-trace soft money, the drafting of bills and gubernatorial policy being o utsourced directly to corporate lobbyists and special interest think tanks, legislative initiatives that represent the interests of campaign donors rather than voters -- have infected the state. Gov. Paul LePage's administration has been a vector for some of the worst viruses, but plenty of others were quietly metastasizing in the body politic during the Democrats' long watch.

But don't give up on Mainers, yet. Yesterday, Rep. Kathleen Chase (R-Wells) asked a key legislative committee to kill her controversial immigration bill, modeled on the infamous Arizona statute. The reason is moving, even for cynical political observers like myself: she had an emotional, occasionally fiery face-to-face meeting with immigrant advocates Rachel Talbot Ross (of the Maine chapter of the NAACP) and Alyisa Melnick (of the Maine Civil Liberties Union) and, after a few days of contemplation, recognized the harm the bill would have done to people unlike herself.

MPBN's Josie Huang has the story, and its worth listening to the original three minute audio version. If empathy can survive in the corridors of power, there's hope for us all.

Nuclear waste, power, and New England, a Post-tsunami look

2011-05-09T12:42:00.013-04:00

With Japan still combating the worst nuclear power disaster since Chernobyl, Americans have been reintroduced to the dangers inherent in the nuclear fuel cycle, in which events considered too improbable to take seriously can have horrific implications.

With that in mind, I've taken a look at Maine's nuclear risk exposure, both from the high-level waste stranded in Wiscasset and from operational nuclear plants just over our eastern and southern borders. The results are in the June 2011 issue of Down East, which arrives on newsstands this week, and is already available online.

For those wishing to do further reading thereafter, try starting with the documents section of the Maine Yankee website and the monthly safety reports from the State of Maine's nuclear safety officer.

As I previously reported in the Phoenix, there was recently an interruption in the flow of the latter documentation, which is required by Maine law. Since then, reports for last October, November, and December have posted, meaning the site is still roughly three months behind its usual reporting schedule. At a glance, the reports contained nothing unusual, except that both the October and November 2010 reports had references to condition incidents considered too sensitive to disclose to the public. Having read all prior monthly reports, I don't recall seeing such references in the past. Perhaps these incidents, whatever they were, have some bearing on the delay in the filing of the reports.

Portland: State approves weakened working waterfront protections

2011-05-06T16:21:00.007-04:00

Earlier this year, I reported on how city officials in Maine's largest city, had weakened working waterfront protections at the behest of pier owners. Presented with the option of excluding the pier ends themselves from zoning changes -- but opening up the valuable lots along Commercial Street to a wide range of developments -- the majority of Portland city councilors decided there was no need for caution.

State officials from the outgoing administration of Gov. John Baldacci warned they would likely not approve the changes, but most observers expected that under Gov. Paul LePage, developers would likely trump fishermen when the zoning changes were reviewed. And, indeed, this is precisely what happened, as announced today by City of Portland spokesperson Nicole Clegg:

City of Portland
389 Congress Street
Portland, Maine 04101
www.portlandmaine.gov
CONTACT: Nicole Clegg, 207-756-8173, 207-272-4477 (cell) nicoleclegg@portlandmaine.gov

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 6, 2011

Maine DEP Approves Changes to Waterfront Central Zone

PORTLAND, Maine – Today, the City of Portland was notified by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection that the city’s request for zoning amendments under the Shoreland Zoning Program has been approved. The Waterfront Central Zone amendments expand opportunity for development while continuing to protect working waterfront uses and infrastructure.

“Today’s announcement marks the end of the successful planning process and the beginning of new opportunity for the city’s waterfront,” stated City of Portland Mayor Nicholas Mavodones. “We appreciate the time the Maine Department of Environmental Protection took to both provide input during the planning process as well as review and grant approval to our amendment request.”

“For more than 20 years, Portland has strived to strike the right balance between protecting the character defining maritime uses that we love with other development that increasingly characterize the city’s new economy. We sought equilibrium by creating a mixed-use waterfront that supports our marine-based industries and as a result have created a dynamic waterfront that values the many industries for which our piers are their lifelines. It goes without saying that we are proud of the city’s waterfront and the local policies that support it.”

“The changes approved today are the direct result of the hard work and commitment of the stakeholders, city staff and the City Council to work collaboratively in developing policy that would present new development potential while protecting the city’s working waterfront. We took great pains to insure that the Waterfront Central Zone process involved everyone and while we may each have had our own oar, we all agreed to pull in the same direction. Because whether you are a fisherman or a restaurant that prepares the fish; a lobsterman or a tour guide taking a group of people on a boat to pull traps; a tugboat operator or a bus driver taking cruise ship passengers to tour the lighthouses, we are all connected and depend upon each other’s success to make our economy work. Just as Portland creatively navigated economic challenges of the twentieth century, today, we enact new policies that preserve our working waterfront and build our economy for the twenty-first century,” concluded Mavodones.

Portland’s Central Waterfront, located west of the Maine State Pier and east of the International Marine Terminal, is home to fifteen piers, dozens of marine and non-marine businesses, and is the center of the region’s fishing economy. The zoning amendments for Portland’s Central Waterfront were developed to protect traditional marine business while allowing other compatible uses for development.

Maine: a Senate candidate's financial priorities

2011-05-04T11:45:00.008-04:00

Here's another one from the Can't Make This Stuff Up Department, which has been sadly expanding its footprint on the Maine political scene of late.

Louis Maietta, the Republican candidate in the special election to replace the retiring state senator for South Portland, has a company under bankruptcy protection. He owes the City of South Portland over $14,000 in unpaid taxes. He reportedly has two court judgments against him to return $770,000 to a 96-year old woman over whom he once had power of attorney.

But MPBN couldn't reach him for yesterday's story because -- wait for it -- he's in the Turks & Caicos Islands attending his daughter's destination wedding.

You'd think this apparent lack of fiscal responsibility would concern the GOP, which hopes to pick up the seat previously occupied by Democrat Larry Bliss. But state party chair Charlie Webster had this to say to MPBN: "Who's somebody sleeping with or where they moved here from or how much debt they have or if they owe money to somebody--those things are not significant," Webster says. "The question is, he capable of representing the district? He did it in the House for a couple years. He's a successful businessman, well-known in the community."

Fascinating.

[Update, 5/11/2011: Maietta was defeated by his Democratic challenger, Cynthia Dill, by more than 2-1.]

Speaking on the mast trade, South Portland, April 30

2011-04-28T19:50:00.005-04:00

For those in Southern Maine: I'll be giving a special talk for the Tate House Museum's Annual Event this Saturday, April 30, at Southern Maine Community College in South Portland.

My program, Maine and the Mast Trade: Strategic Resources, Geopolitics, and the Clash of Empires, tells the story of a half century period when Maine found itself at the center of a global trade in a scarce resource vital to military power and what we today would call national security. The Tate House (1755) -- the oldest structure standing in Portland -- was a major node in this vital trade in masts suitable for the battle line-suitable warships on which the security of the British (and Dutch, French, and Spanish) empire depended.

The event, a fundraiser for the Tate House, starts at 6pm, includes dinner and a cocktail reception, and costs $100 per person or $160 per couple. For more information, please call 207-774-6177 or email info@tatehouse.org.

(All of my speaking engagements are posted here as they are scheduled.)

Republicans for DeCoster, LePage for teaching creationism

2011-04-27T15:33:00.010-04:00

Ever wonder how Jack DeCoster, Maine's infamous egg magnate, has gotten away with it after all these years? One reason is that regardless of what he does -- triggers the largest egg recall in history, gets investigated for cruelty to his birds, gets fined for virtually imprisoning his Latino workers, falsifies trucking records, leaves mounds of dead chickens out in the open and won't bury them until sued -- he always seems to find friends willing to help him out.

Case in point: this week Maine legislators are considering a bill to do DeCoster a favor by depriving his workers of the minimum wage, overtime, and collective bargaining rights. Read the whats, whos, and whys in my piece in the new Portland Phoenix, which dropped today. (Also, check out Steve Mistler's earlier Sun Journal coverage of the bill's hearing.)

And, for your moment of Zen, here's a recent video of Gov. Paul LePage telling a conference of homeschoolers that he favors teaching creationism in Maine's public schools because "knowledge is power."

[Update, 5/29/2011, 16:00: In a nail-biter, the committee voted against the bill 7-6, with one Republican defecting from the DeCoster camp. The bill will likely be voted on by the full house.]

[Update, 5/29/2011, 16:50: In a bizarre twist, the committee revoted, passing the measure 7-6. Rep. Fred Wintle (R-Garland) -- who told reporters just hours earlier "I support collective bargaining rights" -- changed his position. 5/30/2011: The details on that.]

American Nations on Amazon

2011-04-23T12:40:00.007-04:00

An update from the Department of Shameless Self-Promotion:

My forthcoming book, American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America, can now be pre-ordered at Amazon.com, at B&N.com and, presumably, via your locally-owned independent bookseller. Viking officially releases it on October 3rd.

At this writing, Amazon doesn't yet have a description of the book, but there is one on the American Nations page of Viking's Fall 2011 catalog. [PDF] I'll be giving what will likely be my first American Nations talk as the keynote lecture at the Fifth Annual Bangor Book Festival October 1.

I now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.

Chris Hondros (1970-2011)

2011-04-21T09:06:00.012-04:00

The world lost two of its most courageous photojournalists yesterday. Tim Hetherington -- who directed Restrepo -- and Chris Hondros were killed by a rocket propelled grenade while covering the fighting in Misrata, Libya.

Hondros was a Pew Fellow in International Journalism a couple of years after I was, and we were briefly introduced at a 2007 reunion conference of sorts. There, he was on a panel about covering the Iraq war and, as program director John Schidlovsky noted today, talked about his work there with striking humility. I remember thinking the world was fortunate to have such people documenting what was happening in its most troubled corners.

If you don't know his name, you've probably seen the images he captured, often at considerable personal risk. There was this famous sequence from Iraq. And perhaps the most iconic im age from the Liberian conflict (right). And all of these from conflict zones around the world. And the final set he uploaded from Misrata yesterday, literally from the midst of the fighting.

There aren't a lot of people who - like Hondros and Hetherington - have the courage, skill, and constitution for this kind of genuinely truth-telling work. The rest of us are impoverished by their passing.

[Update, 4/23/2011: On Hondros and his last days in Libya, from his best friend.]

Getty Images

Gov. LePage's first 100 Days: more bridges burned than built

2011-04-17T13:16:00.012-04:00

My assessment of Maine Governor Paul LePage's first hundred days is up over at Newsweek / The Daily Beast. The abstract: he's caused himself a lot of damage over matters peripheral to his agenda and shows little indication that he's going to stop doing so anytime soon.

While I wrote the piece with Newsweek.com in mind, it was published wearing Daily Beast livery, as the operational merger of the two outlets is now complete, giving the latter control of all original digital content. The piece ran as written, but with a tabloid headline: "Maine's Madman Governor Paul LePage strike s again." I'd prefer they'd have substituted "volatile" for "madman," as the latter term calls for speculation.

For Maine politicos, a couple of tidbits that didn't make it into the piece:

The eight senators who wrote the OpEd blasting LePage have agreed not to comment further on the matter, both Sens. Roger Katz and Brian Langley told me, as they wish to "move on" with the business at hand. I also learned that the they almost certainly acted with the blessing of the Republican leadership, as the OpEd was shopped around and placed by Senate President Kevin Raye's press secretary (and As Maine Goes editor) Scott Fish.

G.O.P chair Charlie Webster told me the OpEd was "a clear example of legislators representing their constituencies. I totally understand why eight people signed it If they'd taken it around they could have gotten more house members and maybe a few more senators. People in Maine who are working for a living are tired of this -- the mural, the whoopie pies -- they don't want to hear about these things."

For additional context on the LePage administration, I offer this fresh Down East article on his environmental policies, a prophetic Newsweek.com piece from January and, of course, the "Secret Puppeteers" cover story from the Portland Phoenix.

Maine Gov.LePage vs the Environment.

2011-04-14T08:42:00.017-04:00

The current conversation around political campfires here in Maine focuses on whether Gov. Paul LePage's star has already set, less than four months after taking office. I've argued here that he's certainly taken a hit, while Portland Press Herald columnist and editorial writer Greg Kesich has gone so far as to declare "the LePage era is over."

Murals aside, one of the principal causes of Mr. LePage's loss of influence has been his ill-considered assault on Maine's environmental and product safety laws, which has featured a range of proposed regulatory rollbacks that appear to benefit only the out-of-state chemical, toy, and pharmaceutical companies whose lobbyists wrote much of the governor's reform agenda. In this month's Down East, I explore the origins of and political reaction to the governor's rollback plan, much of which has been stricken from the relevant bills by the Republican-controlled legislature.

Maine politicos will also find a partial answer on where the Maine Grocers Association really stood on the effort to put BPA back in babies' bottles and sippy cups, a LePage proposal that was defeated 145-3 in the House last week, and 35-0 in the Senate yesterday. In case you're curious, the holdouts were Larry Dunphy (R-Emden), Beth O'Connor (R-Berwick), and Heather Sirocki (R-Scarborough).

For the record, LePage has not changed its position on BPA. "The LePage Administration would not have crafted the rule as it was produced by the last administration and that the Governor still opposes the product prohibition," his spokesman, Dan Demeritt told me Mar. 28.

[Update, 9/16/2011: Yglesias picked up on my story today.]

Academe: does the pursuit of global "excellence" in faculty hiring have a downside?

2011-04-10T08:27:00.003-04:00

I've been a correspondent of The Chronicle of Higher Education for twenty-two years now, covering research and university affairs from locations around the world. My latest story -- from Canada -- explores if there's a downside to the current trend in the globalized hiring of faculty, at least in regards to social sciences and humanities fields, where "local knowledge" can be critical to a university's mission.

Canada offers an interesting case study. It's a small country (30 million) that was once so concerned about having its faculty become dominated by Americans that it spawned a powerful "hire local" campaign, the Canadianization movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. But that movement has run its course, scholars argue, and there are some grounds for concern that important, Canada-specific scholarship may become impoverished as a result.

The story is behind the Chronicle's pay wall, so if you're not a subscriber, you might be prompted to pay up to read it.

As always, you can find all of my journalism articles posted at my website.

Gov. LePage begins paying political price

2011-04-01T16:27:00.012-04:00

Maine's controversial governor, Paul LePage, has been in office less than three months, but he's already galvanized progressives, lost the support of two-thirds of self-declared moderates, and reportedly alienated leading figures in his own party, including party chair Charlie Webster and, now, nearly half of the G.O.P. Senate delegation.

Readers need little review of Mr. LePage's ill-advised actions and remarks, as they've been sufficiently outrageous as to have him in the national media spotlight on an almost weekly basis. From telling the NAACP to kiss his butt on the eve of the M.L.K weekend to joking (ho-ho) that the reason he supported the return of the banned substance BPA to baby's bottles and sippy cups was that the worst thing that could happen is that some women would "grow little beards" to marking the anniversary of the infamous Triangle Fire by announcing he would dismantle a mural of Maine's labor history hanging in the Department of Labor to kicking off Sunshine Week by denouncing users of Maine's Freedom of Access Act as being engaged in "internal terrorism," Mr. LePage has appeared hell-bent on making as many enemies as possible as quickly as he can.

One of the biggest questions in Maine politics has been whether or not Maine's legislative Republicans -- who control both chambers of the State House -- would support his unpopular and often pugnacious agenda. In ordinary times, there would be no question that they would not: the state party has been a bastion of old fashioned Yankee Republicanism as personified by Margaret Chase Smith, Bill Cohen, and Olympia Snowe. But last year there were signs that the moderates may have lost control to the pitchfork-bearing Tea Party sympathizers who nominated LePage and passed a party platform calling for, among other things, vigilance against a "one world government."

Now it's becoming clear that many Republican legislators will abandon LePage's ship before he steers them into any more icebergs. Last month every Republican on a key committee rejected his unpopular BPA campaign. Last week, Senate Republicans met with the governor about, as he put it afterward "zipping my mouth and not offending them." And next week, the Bangor Daily News just revealed, an OpEd piece blasting the governor will be published signed by at least eight G.O.P senators. "We feel compelled to express our discomfort and dismay with the tone and spirit of some of the remarks coming from him,” it reportedly reads. "Were this an isolated incident and not a pattern, we would bite our collective tongues, because we are all human. But, unfortunately, such is not the case. We feel we must speak out.”

Since entering office, Mr. LePage has shown little understanding of how the political chess of governance is effectively played, or even how the pieces move. He's quickly learning one lesson: a king with few allies rarely remains on the board for long.

[Update, 4/4/2011, 0745: The OpEd has been published, signed by eight Republican Senators and written by Sens. Katz and Langley (the two candidates who also criticized the RSLC's false attacks on their opponents during the campaign.)]

[Update, 4/14/2011, 0917: The Republican-controlled State House has resoundingly defeated LePage's effort to rollback the ban on BPA in baby products. The vote was 145-3 in the House and 35-0 in the Senate. In case you're curious, the holdouts were Larry Dunphy (R-Emden), Beth O'Connor (R-Berwick), and Heather Sirocki (R-Scarborough.)]