Tepler an advocate for her constituents

I’m looking forward to Nov. 5 because I will have the chance to vote for Denise Tepler again!

Maine Senate District 24 (Sagadahoc County and Dresden) has a strong history of supporting early education and care. Both Sens. Seth Goodall and Eloise Vitelli sponsored legislation to fund public pre-K.

Now, parents and grandparents and all others who care about our young children have a chance to vote for another advocate! Denise Tepler raised five children in Maine and is now the grandparent of an infant Mainer. She learned just how deep our child care crisis is when hunting for care for her granddaughter, and she has committed to working on early education and care issues in Augusta.

Tepler understands that quality, affordable child care, supported by a fairly compensated workforce, is essential not only to family well-being but to our Maine economy.

Please join me in voting for Denise Tepler for and supporting our youngest citizens.

Margaret Leitch Copeland,
Bath

I support Denise Tepler for Maine’s Senate District 24, representing Sagadahoc County and Dresden. Both Denise and I have served on SAD 75 school board where we highly valued the quality of education for her own and all area children. Denise and I both worked to expand the Maine Apprenticeship Program and pre-apprentice opportunities in Maine high schools to meet more of area business needs for well-trained workers.

Denise and I believe in saving energy through carpooling and in seeking out residents to listen to their concerns and needs. She drove me to a Sagadahoc Democratic meeting and introduced me to active Democrats so I could be more effective as a school board member.

While serving four years in the Maine Legislature, Denise was chairperson of the Health Coverage, Insurance and Financial Services Committee. She worked to keep insurance rates low for working Mainers, to reduce bank fees and to increase health insurance access for more Mainers. She also sponsored and helped pass lower health care costs for Maine’s many small businesses, which employ the largest number of Mainers.

Denise knows how work gets done in the Maine Legislature, listened regularly to many viewpoints of voters and legislators, and is calm and smart at coming up with consensus positions in the Legislature that will work. She values people from all cultural and work backgrounds equally and served conscientiously to represent working people, small businesses and families needs.

Please make a plan to go to your town’s polls on Tuesday, Nov. 5, or registered voters may request an absentee ballot before Oct. 31 from apps.web.maine.gov/cgi-bin/online/AbsenteeBallot/index.pl. At this secretary of state website, click on the Request Absentee Ballot button that’s correct for you, and it will be mailed to you. You can either take or mail the completed ballot to the clerk at your town office.

Nancy B. Chandler,
Topsham

The cat-a-tonic view of reality from Trump/Vance

Who knew the presidential election 2024 would come down to the truth about cats? There was the irreparable insult when JD Vance reduced reproductive rights’ support to “childless cat ladies.” Then, of course, there was his support of the anonymous Facebook poster’s allegation that legally granted, asylum-holding Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing their neighbors’ cats and cooking them. The ultimate cat-related truth is JD Vance refuses to concede — now in the vice presidential debate — that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. In one brief exchange, the real cat truth Vance let out of the bag is that he doesn’t want Trump to be elected president, either. His ongoing promotion of these demeaning, something-for-everyone insults is JD Vance clawing toward his own political future, with Donald Trump out of the way once and for all. JD Vance is Trump’s saboteur. Cats everywhere — by reproductive rights supporters, in the kitchens of legally granted asylum recipients and, yes, in the cat fight which, in his refusal to concede that Trump lost in 2020, he promises us all when Donald Trump loses this time around. Do not doubt for one minute that JD Vance will pussyfoot his way back for a national political office run once the catatonic view of reality Trump presents has exited. The JD Vance cat is out of the bag. He doesn’t want Trump to win, either, because there is nothing humorous or light about the totalitarian rule Trump openly says he supports. The choice and promise for all of us is a sane, civil future with Kamala Harris as our next president and judicious, humane government for us all. Do your part and vote for Kamala Harris in November.

Susan Cook,
Bath