Democrats from throughout Lincoln County came together in rousing fashion during the annual Lobster Bake and Family Fun Day, Sunday, Aug. 12, at Waldoboro’s Cider Hill Farm. Eight local and statewide candidates, including U.S. Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, Zak Ringelstein, candidate for U.S. Senate, and State Attorney General Janet Mills, candidate for governor, joined nearly 150 fellow progressives for an afternoon of music, food, and lively conversation.

The afternoon began with The Oystermen providing a background of folk music as guests renewed acquaintances, made new friends, enjoyed oysters provided by The Pemaquid Oyster Co., and discussed the issues of the day with candidates who moved among the crowd.

LCDC Chair Chris Johnson introduced Mills, who as attorney general has challenged the current administration and provided life-saving Narcan to the law enforcement agencies throughout the state who are on the front lines of the opioid crisis. She acknowledged that her opponent, Shawn Moody, has promised another four or eight years of Gov. LePage’s policies; she proposed instead that the Maine people want and deserve “a governor who works with Democrats, the Green Party, Republicans, and members of the legislature [to get] things done the old-fashioned way – the democratic way – by bringing everyone to the table and moving the agenda along.”

Mills continued as the crowd cheered her on, “All the polls – and I don’t need a poll to tell me this because I know it from seeing people and having lived through it myself – all the polls say that healthcare is a human right and a necessity and we’ve got to bring back that sense of providing for one another, a sense of compassion, a sense of community and connectivity that I grew up with in western Maine and most of you grew up with.”

“We’re going to stand up to the polluters, the big pharmaceutical companies, the Wall Street giants who are raking us over the coals and we’re going to keep our clean air and our clean water and fight for what’s right in the environment, make sure that people understand climate change is real and how it is affecting us,” Mills shared. “We believe in science. ... And we believe that ... every small business – the cornerstone of our democracy and our communities - should be able to thrive and produce good-paying jobs. We want to produce our own renewable energy and not fight over ‘Net Metering’.”

Ringelstein joined the group with his wife, Leah, and thanked the LCDC for “the first date afternoon we’ve had for quite a while,” which drew a sympathetic chuckle from the gathering. As the son of a social worker, Ringelstein qualified for the free-lunch program as a child. In his 20s, he built a successful career as a public school teacher and developed an education business that landed him on the Forbes “30 Under 30” list. Ringelstein touted his grassroots campaign, which has rejected donations from “corporations, PACs, lobbyists, and the fossil fuel industry,” making the observation that, in the current economic climate, “The working class is not at the table – we’re on the menu.”

When Jeff Hurd, owner of The Narrows Tavern and caterer for the event, called everyone to dinner, the candidates pitched in and helped serve. Seated comfortably under the Democrats’ big tent, the crowd tucked into dinner. Johnson asked Congresswoman Pingree, who recently traveled to the Southwest with a Congressional delegation inspecting detention camps for immigrant children separated from their families, to make some remarks.

“I went down to the Texas border and got the chance to see people ... attempting to cross legally ...,” she began. “We met with mothers who didn’t have any idea where their children were. I was in a room in a detention center that moved members of Congress to tears ... Think about what, in the name of the United States, has been done by this administration. And however you feel about immigration ... These are people attempting to come into the country legally or legally applying for asylum.

“We took away their kids. They really were in rooms full of cages ... freezing cold rooms with aluminum/mylar blankets ... babies in cribs. And they have no system to track this. They never imagined that they would be caught, playing out their ideology, and have to return these children to their parents.”

Pingree’s comments were followed by the introduction of State Senate candidate Laura Fortman, who told a story that illustrated the current governor’s shredding of the social safety net, “... That’s what I’m hearing when I’m knocking on doors. It’s that, fundamentally, things are broken.” Gov. LePage has declined federal funding that might provide insight into the links between the exploding tick population and climate change. Fortman continued, “I was in Bristol last weekend knocking on doors. I talked to one person who had someone in their family die from Lyme Disease and another who was seriously ill ... To me, when you have two people in a single community who are raising their hands and saying ‘We have a problem here,’ then we have a problem. Every day when I’m talking to folks, they’re identifying the issues: kids not being able to come to school adequately prepared because their parents are cycling in and out of low-paying jobs; they might not have a steady place that they’re sleeping at night; they may not have the food that they need in a reliable way. That’s what I’m hearing and that’s why I’m running – to make a change.”

Lincoln County Sheriff Todd Brackett, Jason Putnam, candidate for HD87, Maine House Representative Mick Devin (HD90), and County Commissioner Bill Blodgett (D2) also addressed the crowd, delivering a unified message that echoed Mills’s declaration that Democrats in government will: “bring compassion and connection to the job - believing that healthcare is a human right, climate change is real, that every young person in Maine should have a good paying job here at home, development of renewable energy is essential, teachers are to be valued, veterans deserve a home to go to, and that every senior should have heat in their homes.”

The LCDC offers many “meet the candidates” events across the county, along with other group discussions and meetings. Learn more at http://lincolncountydemocrats.com/calendar or www.facebook.com/lincolncountydems/.