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Maine Policy Institute · Newsradio WGAN

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  Right now, as we usually do on a Friday, we get an opportunity to
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  speak with our friends, The Maine Policy Institute.
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  And joining us now is Montana Towers, policy analyst with The
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  Maine Policy Institute. How are you this morning, Sir?
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  I'm doing well now. Of course you are.
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  Of course you are. So look, it's been a thin week
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  in Maine politics. We had Janet Mills drop out last
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  week. And so there's, you know, a
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  little bit of a change to the political environment and
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  whatnot. But one of the things that is
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  standing out to me, Montana Towers, is that the race for
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  governor is kind of getting in that 30 day window right now.
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  We're getting to crunch time. You're starting to see a lot of
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  debates and not everybody is always at these debates, which
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  is an interesting little sub story of his own.
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  But I'm curious, Montana Towers, you've likely had the
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  opportunity to see not only some of the Republican debates, but
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  also the Democratic debates as well.
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  If you were, here's a funny question, if you were the
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  moderator of these debates, do you think that you would be
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  asking different questions or are you, are they, are they
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  actually talking about the stuff that's going to matter to voters
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  and is important for Maine right now?
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  Do you have a Do you have a sense of how these conversations
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  have been going? Yeah, One of my interesting I
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  actually was thinking about this when I was watching the second
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  Republican debate because they seem to be asking so many
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  questions that have been gone over again and again.
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  You know, one of the things they really told in on was, you know,
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  what makes you unique as a candidate.
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  And the problem with that is that it causes a lot of
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  candidates to lean into, you know, their background, their
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  experience. And while that is interesting on
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  some level, I think a lot of people have heard some of these
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  stories already. They know them.
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  And then there's a large contingent of people that
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  frankly don't care as much about the backgrounds and want to know
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  what they're actually going to do.
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  So this big emphasis on why are you the best person to just ease
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  up these questions on background?
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  It just seems like a bit of a waste of time to me.
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  With the Democrat debates. I thought it was really
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  egregious how much they bleed into the Trump issue, and they
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  were. They weren't talking about main
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  questions at all. They were talking about how you
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  can best stand up to Trump. And that became such a
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  dominating theme of the Democratic debate when I think
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  that so many people in Maine are being crushed right now from
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  Maine policy and from 8 years of bad governance in Maine that
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  they are looking for solutions at the main level.
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  And the the sound of those issues weren't even being talked
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  about at some of these Democratic debates, I think is
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  really a shame. Yeah, I'm glad you brought that
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  up because I was going to ask you about that.
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  It strikes me as a disservice, honestly, to be allowing that
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  kind of stuff to to be the questions that are asked in the
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  Democratic primary. I mean, it's a it's an easy
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  layup. It's I guess what their base
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  wants to hear, right? It's like, you know, tell me all
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  the reasons why and and all the things that you do to thwart
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  that guy that I don't like. But I mean, we're talking about
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  a state that has massive problems, and nearly all of them
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  are sort of related to state policy.
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  And if you're not talking about what you're going to do to the
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  housing situation, to energy, to education, if you're talking
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  instead about Donald Trump in his ballroom or something like
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  that, like it just seems like a great disservice to the
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  conversation. And you don't really learn what
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  you should out of out of watching these debates.
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  But that's just my perspective, obviously.
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  Yeah, no, I completely agree. And, you know, it gets into this
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  question of, I guess, strategy because what you have to imagine
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  the Democrats are trying to do here is obviously there is
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  always in a midterm election of, you know, the kind of
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  traditional wisdom is that there will be a movement against the
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  presidency. So they're trying to latch it on
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  to a national campaign to try to ride that potential wave that
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  they're hoping will come. But like I said, there's just
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  such a disservice to the people made who want to hear the actual
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  issues that are affecting them at the main level.
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  Yeah, I I think that's 100% right.
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  We have Montana Towers joining us as always, to talk about
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  what's going on in this in the in main politics and and we're
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  talking about debates right now. You know, as we sort of evaluate
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  on the Republican side, what you're seeing out of their
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  answers and stuff. You know, you were talking about
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  them talking about the personality based issues.
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  I'm curious if you have the same opinion I do about the other
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  questions, like when you get into some of the policy stuff.
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  I think maybe one of the reasons why they focus on the
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  personality stuff is because when you're asking about all
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  those things that I just listed, the answers that they give are
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  not terribly different. I mean, this is a field that
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  does not seem ideologically very varied, very diverse, very
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  different. They seem to be kind of in the
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  same zone with each other. And it's almost like you have to
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  start choosing between personality traits or
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  backgrounds or something like that because you couldn't
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  possibly make a decision otherwise.
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  That's my take. Am I wrong?
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  Am I right? What it What's your impression
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  from what you've heard? I, I think there's certainly
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  some validity to that. I, I, and I thought that this
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  was interesting when it came to the budget cuts question where
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  the biggest fight wasn't, or at least in the Republican side
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  wasn't should we cut? It was, oh, should it be 1.5
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  billion or 2 billion? Or you know, they even went
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  after Charles multiple times and saying 04 billion isn't
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  possible. But like, it was so interesting
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  that like that is the fight. How many billions of dollars can
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  we cut? And to your point, that just
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  gets to this point of a very consolidated ideological field
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  on each side. But it's really interesting to
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  me because I think it really highlights the difference in the
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  2 fields even more. Like 1 of the lines in the
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  Democrat debate that I just thought was hilarious was Nirav
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  Shah said that in this era of there's failing health care and
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  kids going hungry, no one wants to talk about making cuts.
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  You know, governor wants to be the governor that talks about
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  cuts. And then you cut to the GOP
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  debate and they're literally arguing over how high we can go
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  for cuts. So I think that is really funny
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  that it creates, it's not a distinguishing factor between
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  the candidate pura field. It really distinguishes the 2
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  fields even more. Yeah.
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  No, that's a good point actually.
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  And to the point you were making about the size of budget cuts
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  and whatnot. I'm glad you brought that up
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  because I did want to say ask you about your impression of the
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  realistic Ness. That's not, that's, I just made
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  that word up the, you know, the sort of validity of some of the
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  things that you've heard out of the Republicans on that side of
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  the aisle. I, I will admit to myself being
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  a bit taken aback when Bobby Charles said $4 billion of cuts
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  out of the budget. That would make me a very happy
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  guy. By the way, I'm, I'm, I like $4
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  billion of cuts. That's amazing.
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  But I'm trying to think of how feasible it is to really do that
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  kind of thing, either A, from a policy perspective or B, you
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  know, from a political perspective.
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  Because unless you have a massive super majority of people
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  that are going to go with you on such a ultimately controversial
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  and difficult thing to do, it's hard to see the political angle
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  of doing that kind of thing. But it's also a very difficult
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  thing too, when you start doing what you're doing right now,
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  which is going through that budget and starting to find
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  things to ink out with the red line, you know, and that's a,
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  that's a pretty tough thing. Is it?
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  Is there? Is there a problem of
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  realisticness to use the word again in anything that they're
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  saying? Yeah, I think there's certainly
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  the problem there. As he said, if somebody who's
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  been going through the main budget line by line for last two
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  weeks for MPI project trying to find places to cut, I can say
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  this is not always easy work. You know, there's absolutely
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  waste in state government. There are absolutely full
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  programs that should be drastically reduced or
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  eliminated. You know, there are areas where
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  main spending has blown up from the last Le Page budget
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  monumentally. And you can even see after
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  adjusting for inflation why those numbers should be brought
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  back down. But finding 4 billion in real,
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  defensible and most importantly, achievable cuts, it's a much
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  harder than just throwing out a big number.
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  And I think that some of the candidates are right to focus on
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  a more realistic number, especially considering the
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  likelihood of a hostile legislature if they are to win
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  the gubernatorial seat. And that does not mean that
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  Republicans should stop talking about major spending reductions.
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  I kind of like in a way that, you know, the the projecting a
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  big cut. But they, you know, so they
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  should keep talking about them because this is a major issue.
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  But there is a difference between having a serious plan
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  and just making a sweeping promise.
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  And, you know, the real test isn't whether can it can just
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  say I'll cut $4 billion, it's whether they can actually find
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  the program, defend those reductions and actually get any
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  of it through Augusta outside with a very high likelihood of a
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  hostile legislature. Yeah, I mean, it strikes me as I
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  mean, I, I still like it even though I think that a lot of
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  what they say is unrealistic because it's kind of like buying
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  a car to me. You know, like you, your opening
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  bid is kind of crazy. It's the one that, you know,
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  you're not going to get or whatever, but maybe you settle
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  on the place that's better. So if you're aiming for $4
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  billion of cuts and you get a billion and 1/2 or 2 billion,
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  guess what? I like that.
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  That's that's I'll take it. I'll take it, my friends, I will
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  take it. Well, Montana, appreciate it.
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  I know there's to be many more debates as we kind of get to the
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  home stretch of these of these campaigns.
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  So they'll be plenty more to talk about.
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  But appreciate you giving us your perspective on what we've
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  seen so far. And we'll talk again next
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  Friday, Sir.