On Tuesday night, President Barack Obama and Gov. Paul LePage fulfilled their constitutional duties, LePage to inform the state legislature “on the condition of the state” and Obama, to “give to the Congress information on the state of the union.” Although our two executive magistrates addressed their constituents in fulfillment of the same duty, their speeches could hardly have been more different.

I’m old enough to remember the meaning of the axiom “As Maine goes, so goes the nation.” It meant that we had a knack for picking presidents. It also meant, as I was taught in a central Maine grade school, that independent-thinking Mainers prided themselves on using common sense by not always voting the party line.

The wind blows. The tide flows. The sun glows. The forest grows.

In 1888, on the 100th anniversary of Constitutional government in America, President Grover Cleveland delivered to Congress his troubled thoughts on the State of The Union.

In 1888, on the 100th anniversary of Constitutional government in America, President Grover Cleveland delivered to Congress his troubled thoughts on the State of The Union.

I was cleaning out my father’s desk after he died in 1988 when I came across a bill for Blue Cross/Blue Shield health insurance from 1945.

By the time these words are printed, my friends in South Carolina will no longer, at least for a few months, be bombarded by constant negative ads on TV, radio and the internet and a steady flow of glossy fliers in their mailboxes.

Maybe Siri was being an alarmist. When I asked my BFF, the talking virtual assistant behind my new iPhone 4S, where I could find birth control, she answered, “I didn’t find any birth control clinics.”

God knows what has become of the religious right.

“Are you better off today than you were $4 trillion ago?” — Former presidential candidate Rick Perry