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8
3

Chellie Pingree (D)


Charlie Summers (R)

Debate Score:11
Arguments:9
Total Votes:11
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Chellie Pingree (D)
(6)
 
 
Charlie Summers (R)
(3)

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Who should I vote for in the 2008 Maine 1st District House of Representatives Race?


Chellie Pingree (D)

Side Score: 8
VS.


Charlie Summers (R)

Side Score: 3
2 points

Pointing out how the Federal Communications Council utilized its powers in the past, Maine's 1st Congressional District's Democratic candidate Chellie Pingree blasted the FCC for its continued change in function. Originally, the FCC was created to help stabilize the media to keep an informed electorate.

Today, Pingree claims the FCC takes corporate sponsored vacations and has moved in a direction that promotes business advances for media and technology. She focuses on the collapse of the fairness doctrine and the rise of public knowledge regarding it, believing her work with the nonprofit Common Cause will resonate with voters.

Chellie Pingree on the FCC
Side: Pingree Attacks the FCC
2 points

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting(CPB) has come under fire in recent years for being a vehicle for leftist agendas. As the former President of Common Cause, a nonpartisan lobby group, Democratic candidate for Maine's 1st Congressional District, Chellie Pingree, spoke out at great lengths about the debates on Capitol Hill regarding continued Federal funding for public broadcasting.

Citing the bias in the mainstream media that has been overwhelmed by corporate interests and the 24 news cycle of pop sensationalism and Bush Administration politicizing appointees to the CPB, Pingree responded to accounts of a right wing takeover with a plea to end the partisan bickering over the existence and usage of public broadcasting.

Side: Pingree Supports Public Broadcasting
1 point

Maine's 1st Congressional District has a strong working class base and a solid connection to its unions. Democratic candidate Chellie Pingree will use this to her advantage in keeping the House seat for her party this November. She has been endorsed by all of the major unions in Maine: AFL-CIO, UAW, United Food and Commercial Workers to name a few. She also enjoys support from the major newspapers of the 1st and countless businesspeople, judges, and public service officials. In a district with strong Democratic roots, Pingree has all of the right people and organizations backing her to win the seat in November.

Supporting Evidence: Endorsements (chelliepingree.com)
Side: Unions Help Pingree
1 point

Pingree supports the passage of the Non-Descrimination Act which would make it illegal for companies to descriminate against would-be employees based on race, gender or sexual orientation. Currently, the bill is being considered in it's revised version, stipulating equal rights for transgendered individuals by the House, and Pingree supports it all of the way.

Pingree has stood up in the past against the 1993 Defense of Marriage Act. Pingree:I also support the rights of same-sex couples to obtain all the rights and benefits of marriage -- there should not be a two-tiered system of marriage in our country.

Supporting Evidence: Equal rights for everyone at home and in the workplace (chelliepingree.com)
Side: Chellie Pingree
1 point

As a advocate for free speech and free media, Pingree stood up with former Rage Against the Machinist, Tom Morello to support the "Tell the Truth" tour which was organized to stop media consolidation and keep the free press free.

Pingree supports and promoted the Bill of Media Rights to keep idea integrity, circulation and promotion free.

Pingree unites with Rage Against the Machine for "Tell the Truth Tour"
Side: Chellie Pingree
1 point

Over the past ten years, one could say that Bush's policies have given powers to the military, arms providers and war profiteers that have allowed military operations to become overzealous in threat evaluation.

Pingree believes that it is time to focus on peace rather than making further war and adopt a more fiscally sound method of budgeting defense operstions.

Pingree: "Under our current system, the Pentagon spends tens of billions of dollars on a missile defense system of questionable value while the Department of Homeland Security struggles to find the necessary funds to adequately secure our ports. By unifying the national security budgets we can take a rational approach toward setting our priorities."

In order to begin military spending reform, Pingree says that we must first pull out of Iraq and stop pumping the war full with $25 million a year that doesn't even get to troop support or field needs.

Supporting Evidence: Stop giving the military so many taxpayer dollars! (chelliepingree.com)
Side: Chellie Pingree
1 point

Republican candidate Charlie Summers will use a built in advantage in this years election to the House seat in Maine's 1st Congressional District. His long military service with the US Navy resonates well with a blue collar base. Having served in Iraq as recently as May, Summers duty to his country is a proven record with voters in any state.

Working with the Fellujah Chamber of Commerce and in his role of Pentagon advisor after 9/11, his service can be translated into a synonym of victory in the electorate's mind. Running as a war hero is a major advantage for Summers in an otherwise Democratic district.

Supporting Evidence: Veteran (www.summersforcongress.org)
Side: Summers the War Hero
1 point

Incumbent congressman Tom Allen is now running for the Senate against Susan Collins. Both he and Pingree seem to have vulnerabilities since Collins is still mostly well-liked based on polls and Pingree couldn't unseat her back in 2002. Summers might be able to use this history to point out any failed attempts to damage Collins' reputation. Allen is also an Obama supporter who, although mostly consistent in his opposition to the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act, has voted to fund the war and is running against an Iraq war veteran.

Side:
Charlie Summers (R)
1 point

As a Mainer in support of energy independence via domestic drilling, Summers calls for drilling to begin immediately, saying Congress should leave politics at the door to deal with this "American issue".

His first step is unearthing the almost 900 billion barrels of oil located in Utah, Wyoming, ANWR and the Gulf Coast to help Maine natives and American families out from under skyrocketing gas prices. Summers also believes that Americans must use their "American ingenuity and tools", with the help of federal funding, to create more renewable energy sources and focus on a green future. But for now, says Summers, the focus must be on the people.

Right now, Americans need oil, says Summers, and he will work very hard to make sure that they get it domestically.

Summers: Like it or not, oil as a base form of power is here to stay for long time - it should be our goal to increase our domestic supplies of oil in an environmentally safe way and improve the efficiency with which we use that oil, while at the same time tap into American ingenuity to develop alternative energy sources -wind, solar, nuclear and clean coal technologies.

Supporting Evidence: Oil for now, green once economy is stabilized (www.summersforcongress.org)
Side: Charlie Summers