PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Eliot Cutler, who last ran for Maine governor in 2010, formally announced Sept. 24 in both Bangor and Portland that he is again entering the state’s gubernatorial race. Two days after declaring his candidacy, he was in Presque Isle meeting with constituents.
“I’m running for governor because I love the state of Maine, and I’m a very committed guy who had the extraordinary opportunity of being born here [Bangor],” said Cutler, 67. “I feel very strongly about what Teddy Roosevelt called ‘substantial equality of opportunity.’ We can’t guarantee outcomes or success for anyone, but we can — and have to — guarantee a chance for everyone and we’re not doing that in Maine.
“We’ve lost sight of our hopes and aspirations, and we need to restore that and we need to make Maine healthier, smarter, stronger and younger, and that’s how we’re going to get prosperous,” he said. “You get to prosperity by creating and protecting opportunity, and by getting rid of drags and barriers to prosperity that exist in Maine in our health care system and our education system, and you get there by investing in competitive advantages, our farmlands, our forests, the coast, our communities and skilled people, and you get there by having a plan.”
Cutler says he does have a plan which is laid out in a book, “A State of Opportunity,” which is available for download on his website, www.EliotCutler.com.
“That plan has to include a set of components to make Maine younger,” he said. “You can’t increase the level of economic activity in Maine over time unless we get younger, and we can’t get younger without making investments according to a vision, a plan and a strategy.
“I wrote this book over the course of the last year, but I’ve been thinking about this stuff for years and years,” said Cutler. “I talked a lot about these issues when I ran for governor in 2010, but they’ve come together and coalesced since I started writing it in mid-2012.”
Cutler, an Independent, acknowledges he has been directly critical of Gov. Paul LePage’s performance — and behavior — as governor.
“He’s not all wrong. There are some things he’s done that I agree with, but when he tries to do things right, he gets in his own way,” said Cutler. “And when he isn’t right, he gets in our way.
“Instead of a governor who is a salesman for Maine around the world, we have a governor who has left Maine red-faced and embarrassed all over the world,” he said. “He has launched one unguided missile after another, calling anyone who disagrees with him a ‘liberal’ and every program he doesn’t like ‘welfare,’ yet all the while he has fashioned no plan for Maine’s future, leaving Maine’s economy mired in a decade-long rut.”
While Cutler says his Democratic challenger, Mike Michaud, is a “very decent man,” he doesn’t feel Michaud is the best choice for governor either.
“I like Mike, too, but he is a product of 30 years in Augusta and Washington and look where we are,” said Cutler. “It’s not clear to me what he wants to do, it’s not clear to me what his ideas and proposals are, and it’s certainly not clear to me that he has the breadth of skills and experience — outside of politics — that qualify him to be the leader that Maine needs.
“I hear it all over Maine — ‘We need leadership. We need someone who has the courage, temperament, skills and the experience to lead,’ and we aren’t seeing that from Paul LePage and I don’t have any confidence that we’d see it from Mike Michaud,” he said. “The other problem that affects both of these guys is that they both are driven by two different sets of interests with pretty narrow agendas. The political parties have become smaller and smaller and smaller and narrower and narrower and narrower over time, and as a consequence, one has drifted to the right and one has drifted to the left leaving the middle — which is where most of us in Maine live, think and vote — unrepresented, unhappy and dissatisfied.”
Cutler said his leadership qualifications are clear.
“I worked my way through college and law school, and then I went to work for Ed Muskie. I spent seven years working on helping him write the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act and the National Environmental Policy Act,” he said. “I was the associate director of the Office of Management and Budget in the White House where I oversaw the budgets of seven federal agencies. I eventually became a lawyer and started my own law firm, which became the second biggest environmental law firm in America. I later merged that with another big firm and opened that firm’s office in Beijing where I lived for three years.
“I’ve done turnarounds as a private investor, managed companies, and started businesses here in Maine. I have a broad leadership background in both the private and public sector, and it’s my private sector experience as a businessman and entrepreneur that distinguishes me — among other things — from both Mike and Paul,” said Cutler. “Starting a business, and growing it, and managing it according to a plan, strategy and a vision for where you’re heading, that’s what Maine needs and I can provide that. I don’t think voters want to hear just platitudes and slogans. We’re tired of that, and it doesn’t work. We’re tired of the partisanship, we’re tired of lack of direction, and a lack of a plan. I’ve put forward a vision, a plan and a strategy and I challenge the other candidates to have at it, or offer their own.”
With a little more than a year left until residents cast their ballots for governor, Cutler said the state’s needs are quite clear.
“We need to clean up our political system and our democracy, invest in our competitive advantages, make government smarter, and tackle education and health care. If we do those things, Maine is going to get younger and more prosperous,” he said. “I find campaigning exhilarating and wonderful. How much better could it be spending your time traveling around the state of Maine and visiting with good people? I hope to serve those same good people as the next governor of Maine.”
