On the Maine 2014 Election: Part 1, Of Bears and Men

The phrase "As goes Maine, so goes the nation" dates to a time (the late 19th century, after the betrayal by the Federal government of Black Reconstruction and liberation in the South) when the national electorate was far more white and agrarian than it is today. Maine is still far more white and far more agrarian than most of the country, and is also by some measures the most aged state: The nation that went with Maine is long gone, while the state itself remains, at times charmingly and mor...