Attention Maine Primary Campaigns (Updates)
I'm looking for answers from the 1st CD candidates -- that's Chellie Pingree on the distaff side of the aisle, and on the non-distaff side of the aisle, Michael Brennan, Adam Cote, Mark Lawrence, and Ethan Strimling.
I'm also looking for answers from Tom Allen, who's running statewide.
1. For those who read Wampum, which is about as likely as Ken's opening a lobster pound in Paris, I've written a bit on the last BRAC round. The short of that is three-parts. First, Olympia, Susan, Tom, Michael and the usual collection of local luminaries weren't effective in saving the Brunswick NAS, and more credit for saving the Portsmouth Yard goes to the oddly patriotic Duncan Hunter of San Diego, who decided that Don Rumsfeld's plan to scuttle the North Atlantic submarine fleet didn't meet his standards for rational thought, than to the amateur hour production. Second, the 8th Air Force (B-52s and B-2s), the 12th Air Force (B-1Bs), the 20th Air Force (500 Minuteman II and 50 Peacekeeper missiles), and Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay Georgia (SSBNs) were not on the reduction list, and should have been. Third, the BRAC process cannot, unless Congress buys this particular pony, legally substitute the judgment of the worst SecDef in modern history, or better ones, for the Congressional authority, and responsibility, to select the weapons, and therefore the conflicts, the United States may prudently enter.
Question: During your second term in office the 2010 BRAC process will take place. At this point in your national defense policy issues basket, do you have any candidates for what can be cut, or should be preserved or increased? This is a general principals question, to see if you have a theory of Congressional authority, and/or a theory of national interests and military spending, or are a "let the experts decide" kind of gal or guy.
2. Its been five years since George W. Bush issued the movement order that initiated the invasion of Iraq. Periodically candidates and others write think pieces, from Wesley Clark's hire-the-Saudis-to-get-OBL, to Carl Levin's out-without-a-date-to-motivate, to ... the electoral political and defense policy woods are full of such magic phoenix birds.
Question: In the next months of your campaign are you going out to the voters with the message that events in Iraq can't be controlled by the United States, in particular that Nuri al-Maliki and his band of intransigents may end up on the ends of ropes if they don't get their act together while the US attempts to exit Iraq, and possibly even if they do, or that events in Iraq can be controlled by the United States, and that the US can, if it doesn't blunder further, create "stability and peace" that keeps the "government" created by Paul Bremer in 2003 and its successors-in-interest in power and not back in exile in Tehran? This is a general principals question, to see if you have a theory of the Occupation, and/or Exit, or are a "let the experts decide" kind of gal or guy.
3. Americans are not very concerned with the plight of the 4.2 million Iraqis displaced by the war, or the number of Iraqis killed by the war, whether one takes the lower figure, on the order of the population of the 1st CD, or the higher figure, on the order of the entire population of Maine. The few thousand US KIA and the tens of thousands of US WIA narratives get much more media attention than "civilian collateral damage" or the "reconstruction interrupted" narratives.
Question: Will you frame your position on the Occupation primarily in terms of cost and linkage to the narrative of domestic economic necessity, that is, immediate voter self-interest, or will you frame your position in other terms such as international law, reparations for aggression, and humanitarian assistance, that is, to the expectation that voters can act against their immediate self-interest and pay to rebuild Iraq during a sharp domestic economic downturn? This too is a general principals question.
I've no expectations about responses, having filled out plenty of push paperwork from interest groups targeting legislative candidates, it takes time and Wampum isn't a one of the "liberal" Wal-Marts of the blogosphere (y!sitp!) or anyone's ATM, but there may be responses, and I'll read any generously.
Update: I've received a response from the Brennan campaign to each of the three questions, and asked for clarification on one part. The Lawrence campaign hopes to respond in the near future too.
