Is the 2018 Maine gubernatorial election going to be a repeat of 2010? With the cast of candidates set, it certainly feels like “deja vu all over again,” as the former Yankee catcher Yogi Berra once said. The early appeal of Alan Caron, an independent, appears to make this a three-way race.

Given the crammed field of moderate candidates, plus Shawn Moody’s transformation into a clone of Gov. Paul LePage, it feels like it is Moody’s election to lose. Although Moody’s campaign has attempted to cast him as an “outsider,” he is really the candidate of the status quo since his party has controlled state government for the last eight years and the LePage political machine is running his campaign. The face has changed, but not the political agenda of more income tax cuts for Maine’s highest income earners and the mirage of trickle-down economics.

Moody seems like a nice guy; too bad he abandoned his common-sense positions when he was an independent in the 2010 election.

Caron, with his vision for transforming Maine’s economy and more widespread prosperity, is appealing, particularly given the missed opportunities of the last eight years and Maine increasingly becoming a state of working poor. He and Janet Mills, the Democrat, may split the 50 to 60 percent of voters who have had their fill of dysfunctional government under LePage.

Now the attorney general and as a former prosecutor and legislator, Mills is the most experienced candidate. Unfortunately for her, Maine voters, unlike employers, often don’t place much value on relevant experience; witness our election of LePage.

Once again, I will not vote for who I think is the best candidate for governor. I will probably wait until the 11th hour before deciding whether Mills or Caron stands the best chance of defeating LePage — oops, I mean Moody.

George Seel

Belgrade