Which is what Republicans claim is true of virtually all regulations on business. So, Summers convinced the Legislature to create a new $50,000-a-year position in his office with the responsibility of helping the private sector negotiate government's labyrinthine inner workings. An investigation by the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting found that Summers's small business advocate spent his first 10 months in office doing almost nothing, except occasionally taking credit for stuff somebody else accomplished.
Summers was successful in getting some regulations changed. He helped make the ones on teenage drivers tougher. After all, kids don't vote. Except fraudulently.
More recently, he made some noise about clamping down on older drivers (like that Angus King guy), although he quickly backed off when he discovered that irate senior citizens were forming caravans to travel to Augusta at 20 miles per hour below the speed limit with their left blinkers flashing the entire way to protest his plans. Old people, as it turns out, are allowed to vote in Maine, apparently due to lax registration laws.
In spite of this glorious record, Summers has been the subject of only the feeblest criticism from his opponents in the Senate race. Perhaps that's because of his unrelenting blandness. Maybe it's because it's hard to take someone of his limited qualifications seriously as a candidate for high public office.
Or it could be because they're saving their best material for Summers's next campaign, after he loses the Senate contest.
It's not as if one more defeat is going to cure his disease.
Will Summers lead to the winters of your discontent? If so, email me at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
