Is Maine the new California? (Portland, Lewiston: apartments, rent, crime)

[DuchessLyratheKind]

Originally Posted by G1..

Yes it is you need to move to Arizona!

Haha, really? If you say so.

[Submariner]

I am from California.

I served 20 years on Active Duty and when I retired we decided to return stateside and to settle in Maine.

In the years that I was serving, California has changed too much. Going back there to visit is upsetting to see how much they have changed.

We live a little bit North of Bangor, which is technically in the Southern half of Maine. But in the Mainer vocabulary to say 'Southern Maine' you would be discussing CD1 or Portland and a 40-mile perimeter around Portland.

Mainers do not use the terms North or South to reference anything geographical. Like how they use the term 'DownEast' [originally a nautical term used by sailors homeported in the Boston harbor].

I can see where Maine is shifting more liberal. But it has a long way to go to reach California.

We have friends who are Repubs, and we have friends who are Dems. I try to stay out of those polarizing topics.

[GearHeadDave]

Originally Posted by Maine Writer

The right does the same. Maine is a live and let live state for the most part. The right wants to control, the rest want everyone else to mind their own business. You probably won't get many answers to which side of the two-headed monster anyone claims because long ago, we were taught that religion, sex, and politics are personal. Being the oldest state in the nation, a lot of us still adhere to that rule of civility.

That's the most I've said about politics in a long time. That's enough of that.

You said a lot with your two paragraphs. Unfortunately the anonymity of the Internet allows people to get away with expressing outrageous even hateful viewpoints, and facilitates like-minded people to find one another.

I'm not from Maine, but the ruby red rural Midwest, and that's the way it always was here too until recent years. Now folks out here in the red zones want to cram their political viewpoints down everyone's throat. Point is, the times they are a changing, and I don't think Maine is impervious.

I did read that Maine is considering open primaries and that would be a huge step forward. Out here where I am you have to publicly register for a party and of course that means you can't vote in both party's primaries.

[svband76]

I feel somewhat of right to speak my mind even though I'll forever be from away. Yes, I am very concerned with the political direction of the state. When I first same to Maine in 2010 it was a different climate it seemed. Still very independent and live and let live. Since the election of the governor 4 or so years ago things have changed radically. The reaction to the Covid thing was insanely overboard and bordering illegal. The most open space acreage per resident of any state in the country and people were wearing masks on remote trails? The entire tourist industry in the state being shut down, etc., etc. Now the Trump off the ballot thing which, we know, will be overturned. And I am absolutely not a Trump fan. Also, now the mandating of electric cars in the state where the weather can bring you to your knees in an instant. Downtown Ellsworth has become Portland Lite (Portland being more like Boston Lite). Anyway, to me, things have become almost intolerable. Just my opinion.
But yes, it IS becoming California -- too expensive and too controlling. Still the most beautiful state anywhere.

[jbgusa]

Originally Posted by DuchessLyratheKind

Been looking for a house in Maine for 2 years and have become concerned about some of the legislation being introduced at the state level and the attempt to keep Trump off the ballot in November. Then this article came out today.



https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop...iberal-bastion



Regardless how you feel about this media outlet, it can't be denied that the lean toward the left is happening.

Remember, it was Maine and Vermont who were the only states voting Republican in the 1936 Presidential election, where Landon lost to that horrible man. The old saying goes, as goes Maine, so goes Vermont.

[EliEverIsAHero]

In the sense that it is becoming a center of arts and culture and hippies move there, yes. Much less gentrified/hipster-fied than Cali but with the same appeal that Cali had when it was a beacon calling to New Agers in the late 20th century.

[jbgusa]

Originally Posted by EliEverIsAHero

In the sense that it is becoming a center of arts and culture and hippies move there, yes. Much less gentrified/hipster-fied than Cali but with the same appeal that Cali had when it was a beacon calling to New Agers in the late 20th century.

But without the perfect weather.

[Submariner]

Originally Posted by EliEverIsAHero

In the sense that it is becoming a center of arts and culture and hippies move there, yes. Much less gentrified/hipster-fied than Cali but with the same appeal that Cali had when it was a beacon calling to New Agers in the late 20th century.

There was an article I saw around 5 to 10 years ago, that ranked each state by how many surviving Hippy communes each state has. Maine ranked the highest.

Those communes are leftovers from the 1970s.

[Kracer]

Maine is an odd duck when it comes to politics.

You can own a fully automatic weapon, silencer, with federal tax stamp, carry a handgun, drive around with a rifle on the front seat..UNLOADED and somehow enough unitarians elect a democrat gov. In 2012 if you drove around Orono and U of Maine territory, the obama stickers were everywhere. Throwback to the 60s peace signs and get out of Nam.

Maine is a live and let live state but migrating MA residents, and overrun with liberal colleges and universities, you get a blinding contrast or politics. Guys holding several seasonal jobs and live to hunt and fish are the heart of Maine. Pop centers of Portland, Bangor and Augusta provide the democrat votes to silence the vast expanse of the state.

The dems want to crush the culture and traditions and bring their not so well thought out ideas to Maine. I suppose there will be a tipping point at some future juncture. Feds have killed fisheries and still get democrat votes. Tried to create a natl park out of the north woods and it was defeated. Still dems get votes.

Tolerate left wing radicals in that live and let live attitude, harmless as the town curmudgeon who shows up at town meetings and objects to all proposals, not realizing their numbers are growing and live and let live might mean doomsday for life as we knew it in Maine.

Maine is like no other state, defies political classification, screams conservative and votes democrat. Used to be dems and repubs were indistinguishable, then there was angus king.

[G1..]

Originally Posted by Kracer

Maine is an odd duck when it comes to politics.

You can own a fully automatic weapon, silencer, with federal tax stamp, carry a handgun, drive around with a rifle on the front seat..UNLOADED and somehow enough unitarians elect a democrat gov. In 2012 if you drove around Orono and U of Maine territory, the obama stickers were everywhere. Throwback to the 60s peace signs and get out of Nam.

Maine is a live and let live state but migrating MA residents, and overrun with liberal colleges and universities, you get a blinding contrast or politics. Guys holding several seasonal jobs and live to hunt and fish are the heart of Maine. Pop centers of Portland, Bangor and Augusta provide the democrat votes to silence the vast expanse of the state.

The dems want to crush the culture and traditions and bring their not so well thought out ideas to Maine. I suppose there will be a tipping point at some future juncture. Feds have killed fisheries and still get democrat votes. Tried to create a natl park out of the north woods and it was defeated. Still dems get votes.

Tolerate left wing radicals in that live and let live attitude, harmless as the town curmudgeon who shows up at town meetings and objects to all proposals, not realizing their numbers are growing and live and let live might mean doomsday for life as we knew it in Maine.

Maine is like no other state, defies political classification, screams conservative and votes democrat. Used to be dems and repubs were indistinguishable, then there was angus king.

People in Maine are smarter then in the rest of the Country.