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To get on the ballot in September, Independent candidates in the 2010 gubernatorial election need to collect 4,000 verified signatures from registered Maine voters by May 25.
As of March 16, Kevin Scott had less than 1,500 after stops from Portland to Presque Isle. Those signatures haven’t come easily.
“I’ve spent eight-hour days over the course of a weekend knocking on doors and gathering 100 signatures,” Scott said in a February telephone interview. “The challenge is really time.”
Scott — of Andover, the Appalachian Trail-crossed town of just over 800 in Oxford County — can’t always find that time. The 1990 graduate of George Mason University, with a degree in government and politics, is the owner of Recruiting Resources International, an employment firm that places professionals in top-tier engineering assignments.
“I’m leaving income on the table by not working,” he said. “I’ll feel better knowing I’m on the ballot when I’m not earning income.”
Scott calls his jobs policy the most promising of any candidate in the race. He said his competitors, especially those in the Republican Party, offer tax and regulatory reform as the main focus of job policies.
“Before you go headlong into a new way of bringing business, you need to look at innovation, which is taking existing technologies and creating something new and attractive with that technology,” he said.
Scott spoke highly of the University of Maine System — especially UMaine’s wood composites program. He has placed many graduates of the program into jobs via his firm. Investment in high-tech programs, he said, is critical to growing Maine’s economy.
“I would like to see a governor who understands how to work with the Legislature to help promote more and more capital investment — private capital — that can invest in and incubate businesses that come out of the UMaine system,” Scott said.
Scott hasn’t reviewed the system budget, but he said any attempt for a candidate to make suggestions on the budget without would be a reach.
“A lot of candidates are talking about inefficiencies. A lot of candidates are talking about consolidation. I don’t like that. I don’t promote that,” he said. “I think that any time you reduce access to higher education, you’re making a mistake.”
Scott wants to engage large companies to come to Maine. He gave Boeing and Volkswagen as examples of companies that have recently built new facilities in other states. Even if they refuse to come, Scott said, Maine can gain valuable knowledge.
“At the end of the day, when they’ve selected Tennessee or they’ve selected Arizona, or some other state, we now have a checklist. We can utilize that matrix — that blueprint of real world experience — as where we need to target reform in our legislature,” Scott said.
Scott chairs the Andover Water District’s Board of Trustees. Local government experience is conspicuously lacking among Maine’s crop of gubernatorial candidates, he said
“I haven’t seen any other candidates bragging up what they’ve done in a town of 800 people, and I think they’d be thinking, ‘Well, that’s a disqualification if all you’ve ever done is [working for] 800 people,” he said. “Eight hundred people in Andover, Maine, is a big job when you’re talking about local issues.”
Scott said many legislators in Augusta are humble, everyday citizens — some, he said, are farmers, florists and small business owners.
“I want to bring balance to Augusta,” Scott said. “These are our neighbors in Augusta trying to do legislation. What kind of balance is there when they go up against a governor who has spent their career in Washington, D.C.? Now the federal government has that reach into that governor’s office.”
Scott is “not impressed” with Governor John Baldacci’s two terms in office. He said Baldacci’s approach to school consolidation, a measure passed by the Maine State Legislature in 2008, took a heavy-handed turn.
“If you didn’t consolidate — if you didn’t get it together — you had to pay a fine,” he said. “I don’t want to be an executive that operates that way.”
Scott grew up in the town of Mexico, which is about 15 miles from Andover. He said his humble roots in western Maine distinguish him from many other candidates in the race.
“I’m running for governor because I firmly believe Maine voters no longer want to see Washington career politicians, high-powered attorneys [and] multi-millionaire businessmen and -women,” Scott said.
Scott also believes his independent status frees him from much of the partisan bickering he said contributes negatively to public dialogue.
“Politics are ruling our world. These differences with political parties and these social issues … are dividing people up,” he said. “The public policy is suffering.”
Scott is optimistic about his grassroots campaign. He is not asking for campaign contributions yet — merely signatures. He has 17 people actively passing around petitions from Aroostook County to Cumberland. When he goes out on the road, he said, the conversation is what he enjoys best.
“You don’t have to buy me a high-dollar meal to talk to me,” Scott said. “My door, as governor, will be open to any political party, any representative and any individual in the state of Maine who wants to speak with me on the telephone or in person.”
“But, as you can imagine, you’re gonna have to talk quick,” he added with a laugh.
Bangor Daily News