For those of you who have been complaining that you do not know what Republican Steve Abbott believes on key issues for Maine’s future, today was your day to ask him.
Abbott held what was billed as a “live blog issues forum” today on his site, and answered questions from Dirigo health, to cigarette tax increases, to campaign finance.
The forum was tightly controlled by the campaign, obviously – questions were submitted, reviewed and then an answer posted by the candidate. This means that it was hardly an unruly and unfiltered digital press conference, but a tightly controlled campaign mechanism.
Example: one of the pressing issues he was asked about was how he thought the Red Sox would do in the coming season.
Still, he is now on record on a few things.
On the business climate:
The number one concern I hear from the business community is the lack of consistency from state government. It seems that every place they turn, the state government is putting up road blocks that get in their way. New leadership with strong support for improving our business climate is the most important place to start.
On Dirigo Health:
Dirigo Health should be eliminated. It was a well-motivated, but has not worked. We need to take a different approach to making health insurance affordable for Mainers. The first things that we should do are make it easier for small businesses to pool for the purchase of insurance and allow people and businesses to purchase insurance across state lines.
On Health Insurance Mandates:
It needs to be a priority [to address costs for individual plans]. Our mandates are one of the reasons that our health care costs are so high. My answer above on Dirigo addresses some of the steps I would take for small businesses.
On public financing for campaigns:
I am running as a traditionally funded candidate. Especially with the difficult budget situation that we are facing, it is wrong for our gubernatorial candidates to be taking hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to run a campaign.
On nuclear power coming back to Maine:
I support nuclear power — it is being used successfully, and safely, around the world.
Noticeably (and understandably) absent from the Q&A were any hot button questions on controversial topics. Nobody asked (or the staff didn’t let through) the elephants that will undoubtedly be coming his way in the future (Steve, Susan Collins has said she never makes a decision without you – what do you think of the stimulus?), so this was little more than a warm up exercise.
Still, it is a welcome embrace of communicating with potential voters in the online space. I hope other candidates make similar pushes going forward.