Blaine House 2010 | News

Bailey pledges no tuition hikes if elected in 2010

Posted on March 22, 2010, at 2:00 a.m.

Samme Bailey, an independent candidate in the 2010 Maine gubernatorial election, was 15 years old when he was kicked out of his family’s Charles Town, W.Va., home.

He was homeless for the remainder of high school and supported himself by working in a local restaurant. Bailey joined the Air Force out of high school, and asked to be stationed in the northeastern United States.

As soon as Bailey apprehensively got off the bus at Loring Air Force Base in Aroostook County, he saw the November snow and thought he wouldn’t last long. He has been a Mainer ever since.

“I fell in love with the area. The people treated me so different than the way I grew up,” Bailey, of Gorham, said in an interview. “That was the first time in my life where someone really said, ‘You’re okay.’”

Bailey said higher education is “at the very top” of his priority list as governor. He would defer to state consultants and “technicians” on questions about University of Maine system tuition increases and said he hasn’t reviewed the UMaine system budget, but would “demand … that there would be no tuition raises” in the near future.

Bailey said college graduates can’t find a steady job in Maine due to a lack of opportunities, so they often move out of state.

“We can’t continue to have that brain drain in Maine and still do well economically,” Bailey said.

Bailey disagrees with many Republican strategies to attract business and retain graduates. He would have “technicians … turning the wheels at midnight” to convince businesses they can make money in this state. Tax reform, he said, would not address the problem.

The candidate said he draws on his experiences in Massachusetts as a way to update Maine’s business climate — a key part of which, he says, is higher education. He says Northeastern University in Boston is a hands-on school UMaine should model itself after.

“Businesses actually go to [Northeastern] to get brains — the new brains they have in there. It’s a practical education,” he said. “I think the University of Maine — they have enough resources there that they could be a Harvard when they want to, and they could be a Northeastern when they want to.”

Bailey, who is vying to be Maine’s first and America’s fifth African-American governor, graduated with a degree in sociology from the now defunct Ricker College in Houlton after his tenure with the Air Force. He has worked for nearly three-and-a-half decades in Maine and Massachusetts, mostly as a recruiter of professional and technical jobs for medium- and large-sized companies.

Bailey has recruited employees for companies such as Fidelity Investments and Gillette – direct job placing experience in professional settings. He says other candidates lack that knowledge.

“I have the kind of experience that I do not see in any other candidate for governor. All of them are saying the same thing. ‘Oh, economic advancement, economic development’ and all of that. But they really don’t know what today’s economic development is,” Bailey said.

Bailey also criticized Governor John Baldacci for not advertising Maine as a viable place to live and work, and criticized Maine’s Democratic leaders for their concern with “social welfare issues,” which he said they support “to make sure that they stay in office.”

Bailey believes the governor’s office should be a “strong advocate” for bringing medium-sized businesses — with 300 – 600 employees — to Maine.

“Maine already has enough mom-and-pop small businesses. And those small businesses, they do okay for a while, but the least little thing can upset the apple cart and you have people unemployed or half-employed,” Bailey said.

Bailey said most large companies are managed out of state and offer mostly manufacturing jobs that “Maine’s best and brightest” are overqualified for. He said medium-sized businesses, by nature, must invest in the community and relocate management to the state the business is in.

Bailey said although he has made campaign stops from Old Orchard Beach to Madawaska, he hasn’t had time to do much fundraising for his campaign, but said he has private donors who have contributed. He also recently invested $100,000 of his own money into the campaign.

Bailey was a friend of Maine’s first Independent governor, James B. Longley, who was in office from 1975 to 1979 and died in 1980. When Longley told Bailey he was running for governor as an Independent, Bailey dismissed the notion.

“I told him in a real joking manner, ‘You just go get ‘em, Jim.’ I thought he had no chance to take that election. But he did,” Bailey said.

Now Bailey says he is modeling his campaign after Longley’s. One of Longley’s sons, Steve, is on Bailey’s steering committee.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2010, 2:00 am. You can follow any responses to this article through the RSS feed.