When I tell my friends I’m voting for Eliot Cutler, conversation usually stops. Faces become blank, eyes shift downward. It’s as if I’m announcing I have a terminal illness. But I know there’s a cure.

Their reaction puzzles me. These are the same folks who agree that Maine’s too-partisan politics are corrupted by “outside” money.

Cutler, an independent candidate for governor, may not be the cure, but he is an antidote to this poisonous hyper-partisanship. Why? Unencumbered by the influence of “outside” money, he can better engage Maine interest groups in the compromise that results in good policy and progress.

There are many reasons to doubt his election will accomplish that, but can anyone doubt that election of either of the two major party candidates (Michaud and LePage), both well-intentioned politicians, will give us anything but more of the same?

To change Maine’s politics, to me the choice is clear.

Ralph Harder, Auburn