Chris McDuffie lives in North Yarmouth.

When I spend money I like to get good value for my investment. I have been getting many solicitations from political candidates to support their campaigns. I know it takes money to get a message out and get elected, but flyers (which I recycle before bringing them into my house) and the political ads are mostly just annoying. 

I follow the news to inform my opinion about who to vote for. I find I can rely on the good professional journalism of the Portland Press Herald and Maine Public Radio for unbiased reporting about public events and candidates. Certainly both are more even-handed than any politician’s literature, so why would I be interested in supporting those sources financially? We are lucky in Maine to have such publications, resources and their  quality staff reporters. Long may they survive.

Personally I am offended by the huge sums coming in to campaigns from big money, usually from out-of-state sources, political PACs and corporations facilitated by the Supreme Court’s wrong-headed decisions on political spending, including Citizens United v. FEC (2010), which allowed unlimited independent expenditures by corporations/unions, and McCutcheon v. FEC (2014), which removed aggregate limits on individual contributions. It doesn’t seem any campaigns need my small contributions.

I have a better idea. Honor your preferred candidate by contributing where you will get more “bang for your buck.” The Good Shepherd Food Bank provides real and needed food to Maine families. You can send a check to the Good Shepherd Food Bank, P.O. Box 1807, Auburn, ME 04211-1807 and designate it in honor of the politician you support. I consider that to be good value.

Same goes to the American Civil Liberties Union, which is carrying the good fight against this administration’s many arbitrary and unlawful actions on so many fronts. I am grateful their good work defending democracy in our country. You can donate to the ACLU OF MAINE, P.O. 7860 Portland, ME 04112 to honor your chosen candidate.

I am reminded of the last Maine Senate race between Susan Collins and her unsuccessful opponent, when national interests poured huge amounts of money into Sara Gideon’s 2020 campaign to unseat Sen. Collins. It proved to be more money than Gideon could find a way to spend.

Gideon ended up with $14.5 million in the bank after the votes were counted. Although Gideon has slowly spent some of this money for other Democratic politicians and organizations, as well as to various charities, I haven’t heard that all of this money has been spent even this long after that 2020 campaign. I’ve always felt that had Gideon contributed that surplus to the Good Shepherd Food Bank before voting began, she would have won the election.

So my suggestion is to redirect your political contributions to worthy causes, like the Good Shepherd Food Bank and the ACLU, which are organizations that actually do good works.