The next 10 years will comprise the single most critical decade in Maine’s history, one filled with both risk and promise.  We must respond to two great challenges.

First, we need to create thousands of new jobs and restore growth and incomes by literally rebuilding the foundations of our economy.  We need to get Mainers working again.

At the same time, we have to resolve an enormous structural budget deficit by reducing state spending by hundreds of millions of dollars.  We will need to make far-reaching changes in the way we govern ourselves and deliver public services in Maine so that Maine works right again.

We’re not alone.  Most states are facing the same kinds of challenges, some with deficits that are even proportionally bigger than ours.  But no other state has the same tradition of solving difficult problems with grit and ingenuity that we have.  No other state has Maine’s unique civic culture that leads us to compromise and solution far more often than to loggerheads and division.  No other state has Dirigo (I lead) as its motto.

Dirigo needs to mean something in Maine again.  Once it does, we can put Mainers back to work, make Maine work right again and show America how to fix government.

The editors are right.  This campaign will be a leadership test, as it should be.