Election 2008, Healthcare Hero: Chellie Pingree, 1st Congressional District, Maine
Friday, October 10th, 2008Her opponent, Charlie Summers, only offers up the same sort of market-based thinking about healthcare that his fellow Republicans do. “Strategies that rely more on consumer choice to drive down costs and drive up quality appear to have the best chance of meeting the health care needs of most Americans,” Summers said is the way to reform a system already strained under market forces and leaving millions without access to care.
The House seat has been held by Democrat Tom Allen since 1997, but Allen is running for the U.S. Senate this year, so Maine will elect a fresh new voice when Pingree prevails in November.
Future constituents who spend much time around Chellie soon learn her work ethic and passion for family comes from a core value system rooted in her upbringing and now shared with her own children. “My mother grew up on the family farm in Minnesota. Years later, when I was a full time farmer, my mom would spend a month with us each year, teaching me all she knew. In a Norwegian/American family, hard work is a given, and my mother never stopped.
“I was the youngest child, and my mom went back to work while I was at home. She was a nurse and, even though she worked long hours, she still cooked everything from scratch. Dad was hardworking, smart, and loved numbers, from the thousands of figures he pored over during the day, to his winning gin rummy scores at night.
“My dad was a lifelong Republican. As a teenager, I was a staunch opponent of the war in Vietnam, and my dad was not at all fond of my war-protesting, anti-authoritarian ways. However, as the years passed, my father would come to visit us in Maine, helping me with the bookkeeping at my various small businesses and playing with his grandkids.
“When I ran for the State Senate in 1992, the year before he died, he and my mom wrote me a check for $50. I was touched to see his barely legible signature–the only contribution he ever gave to a Democrat,” Chellie recounted.
Surely, her dad would be most proud. Let’s help this wonderful candidate: http://action.chelliepingree.com/page/s/signupstep2
http://www.actblue.com/entity/fundraisers/17915