Charles Todorich is a graduate of the Naval Academy and a resident of South Portland. He can be reached at [email protected].

Albert Einstein once said that studying physics was like reading the mind of God, certainly true in understanding the cosmology of the universe, but also true in how cosmology can metaphorically illuminate the mind of Man. 

Just as the event horizon of a black hole is the cosmic point of no return for anything passing within it, so too there are points of no return in human governance. Here, neglected problems gather force over time until, like current quickening in a narrowing river, it sweeps over the falls all who went with the flow until it was too late.

Maine is in such a position.

Since 2016, the state budget has increased 77% from $8.2 billion to $14.5 billion. According to one report, Maine ranks fifth highest among the states in state and local taxes as a percentage of income. Only 26% of Maine students can read at grade level. In 2024, Forbes magazine ranked Maine as the sixth worst state to start a business in.

Illicit drugs, the scent of marijuana and panhandlers and homeless encampments are ubiquitous.  Corruption oozes forth. The once-extolled Maine work ethic has disappeared from public conversation. This is not the way that Maine life should be. Maine needs a leader of forged character, deep life experience that goes beyond State House politics, a visionary intellect to escape being swept over the falls. That leader is Bobby Charles.

I first learned of Bobby when I was asked to review his splendid new book, “Cherish America,” a collection of 56 inspirational character-driven vignettes about people Bobby has encountered in a career that has seen him serve in three Republican presidential administrations.

He has served as an assistant secretary of state under Colin Powell; trained police forces in Iraq and Afghanistan; hunted down narco-terrorists in Central America; traveled behind the Iron Curtain before the fall of the Berlin Wall; lived with “untouchables” in India; volunteered for military service after 9/11 and served for 10 years as a naval intelligence officer; obtained degrees from Dartmouth, Oxford and Columbia School of Law; worked as a litigator in New York; and become a writer of significance with two books and dozens of book chapters and articles to his credit.

As preparation for being the principled, visionary, moral leader Maine needs to avoid the falls, Bobby Charles’ life experiences and Swiss Army knife-type skillset surpass all of his competitors combined.

Bobby makes an immediate impression. Within minutes of first meeting him, I believed that not only could he win the Blaine House but that he could also lead a Republican takeover of the Legislature and constitutional offices. In doing so, he would deliver not just a personal victory but the chance for transformational change, such as eliminating the state income tax and rebranding Maine as a business-friendly home for budding entrepreneurs. 

Bobby has done the impossible before. Graduating from Columbia School of Law in 1987, Bobby was determined to “clerk” for a federal judge — a long shot since he’d never been on law review. Bobby identified and studied the opinions of 300 federal judges and sent a personalized letter to  each of them. Rejected 294 times, he got six interviews, the last of which was with District Court Judge Robert Beezer in Seattle, who took him on.

If you want a candidate who can take on a seemingly impossible task (like eliminating Maine’s personal income tax), choose someone who took on the nearly impossible task of becoming a law clerk without having been on law review, failed in his first 299 attempts, but scored on his 300th shot.

Maine can’t look for a Star Trek “beam me up, Scotty” moment to escape the looming abyss. We simply have to elect the right governor — a man who scored on his 300th shot, a man who not only can win, but who must. That man is Bobby Charles.