Maine Democratic Convention update: 11:30 a.m.
By Jessica Alaimo, PolitickerME.com ReporterThe convention is well underway. Rain is coming down hard and cars are crammed into every imaginable spot outside. Party officials estimate there are about 5,000 people here at the Augusta Civic Center.
So far state delegates have heard from candidates for the Democratic National Committee, more details on that later, and right now delegates are debating the party platform. Issues that have come up are on health care, domestic violence and term limits for legislators.
The convention just approved support of a Department of Peace for the state.
Switch the state delegates for the state Senate, and one wouldn’t be able to tell the difference in the way Senate President Beth Edmonds led the show. Edmonds is serving as chair of the convention.
Delegates supported elimination of term limits. One person objected to the vote.
“Excuse me, but I can hear, and I’ve been badly affected by term limits so I should know,” Edmonds snapped.
Edmonds has also evacuated the back of the room, because delegates sitting at the end of the room (Somerset, Androscoggin, Aroostoock and Washington counties got stuck with the nose-bleeds) complained that they couldn’t hear.
Up next are surrogates for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
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- Oct 27 2008
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Dept of Peace?!?!?
Unlike those Ron Paul supporters who had a positive influence on the Maine GOP Platform, the best the Kucinich's supports can do is add another government agency (Dept of Peace)??? We're too broke in Maine for more government! Democrats WAKE UP!
Department of Peace
A Department of Peace would work to prevent violence in homes, schools, prisons, gangs, police departments, between ethnic groups, etc. The cost of prevention is about 1/10th the cost of damage repairs. How can you afford NOT to have a Department of Peace? Looks to me like the Maine Democrats are very wide awake.
Bravo to the Maine
Bravo to the Maine delegation. Peace, however, is not a partisan issue. The cost to us all for domestic violence in the US (not including military or war related costs exceeds $300 Billion/yr. A small ($10B) investment in a Dept of Peace for prevention of domestic & international violence will pay huge dividends. For the skeptics (and maybe even cynics) Read the proposed federal legislation(HR808)at www.thepeacealliance.org and come up with a better solution if you can.
Ron Cole
Congrats on the Dept of Peace!
If I'm not mistaken, the cost will be provided by private citizens of this country to fund the Dept. of Peace. Why is it the right wingers see everything in terms of money and point fingers at the liberals, when almost always a republican president puts our nation in debt?
We need a US Department of Peace. It's time we focus on the positive rather than the ugliness of war, killings, rapes, abuse, torturing, and other negativities that bring our nation down. Happy non-abusive families is the goal and the direction we should be heading for.
Let's actively create PEACE!
Bravo to Maine for it's support of a US Dept. of Peace and Nonviolence. Peace is not a passive state of being that needs no nurturing, rather, Peace is the measure by which we can resolve conflict before it escalates into violence. It is an active goal, which needs the institutional heft of a govt. department to nuture it into a common state of being in our nation and abroad. Let's focus our energies for peace instead of continuing the victim state we live in. Maine is leading the way!
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