Hey folks,

Just wanted to take a moment and share my speech from this weekend's Maine Democratic Convention.

I'd love to hear what you think.

Thanks,
-Ethan

For those of you who've been following, I'm a State Senator and candidate for Congress here in Maine's First District (our current representative, Tom Allen, is getting ready to knock Susan Collins out of the Senate).  Since Monday is the end of the first quarter, and that's always a major event on the campaign trail, I thought I'd look back at what we've accomplished over the last three months, and where we'll be going in the weeks ahead, as we approach the Democratic primary and the November general election.

If you like what we're doing here in Maine, please show your support via ActBlue.  (Fundraising is tough when you've sworn off PAC and lobbyist contributions, so individual supporters are that much more important to our campaign.)

Hey Folks,

JonB had a great diary at TurnMaineBlue the other day about how keeping the internet free and fair will continue to be a boon for democracy, and I wanted to follow-up in that.

Last year, I sponsored a bill that became the first-in-the-nation resolution regarding Net Neutrality.  It ordered the Maine Public Advocate to prepare a report monitoring state and federal level initiatives to protect what has been a driving principle since the creation of the internet: that all content should be treated fairly and equally, regardless of source, destination, or who owns the lines through which the content passes.

Last month, the Public Advocate Office released its report, "Resolve, Regarding Full, Fair and Nondiscriminatory Access to the Internet".

This past week was National Sunshine Week, a period dedicated to furthering open government and discussion.  So I guess this announcement is fitting.

I've spent years advocating for Maine's public financing laws, because I feel our campaign finance system needs fundamental changes.  So in my campaign for Congress, I'm putting my money where my mouth is.  I'm banking my campaign on the support of individual voters, not the support of special interest lobbyists or federal PACs.

Today, I'm taking my commitment to clean elections one step further.

I'm proud to announce that moments ago, even though my internal polling shows that I am neck and neck with my opponent, I signed on with the Change Congress Movement, a plan to start eliminating the influence of big-money contributors in politics, and to restore our government to the people.

Five years ago this week, our nation was taken down a dark and dangerous path by a President we now know repeatedly deceived the American people.  Because of George W. Bush's deception and determination to take our country to war, almost 4,000 of our fighting men and women, and countless Iraqi civilians, lost their lives in the sands and streets of Iraq. Thousands more have come home battered and broken, with wartime injuries they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. No words we speak now can ever remove this stain upon our history, and no amount of grief will ever return those we've lost back to us.  

That is the very steep cost of this war.