To the editor:
I feel sad for former State Representative Henry Joy, who last week wrote a letter to the paper supporting my State Senate opponent and saying that central and southern Aroostook County could not be represented in Augusta by a Democrat. My five consecutive elections to the Maine Senate a few years back would belie his view of that — on three of those elections I did not even have a Republican opponent!
Unfortunately, there are too many people like former Representative Joy representing us in Augusta today — people who don’t have original thoughts or who never go against their party leadership. I am proud of the service that I gave the people of Aroostook County, both as a State Senator and as your Attorney General — the last Attorney General with a Republican Governor before Gov. LePage. I spent four years in that role with former Gov. John McKernan, Jr. and I consider him to be a friend to this day.
A big part of our problem in Augusta is that too many people think like Mr. Joy — that their party has all the valid ideas and that no one in the other party could put forth a proposal worthy of consideration, and I very much disagree with that. That has never been my way of operating and Henry Joy knows better.
Michael E. Carpenter
Houlton
