House District 88 encompasses one of the poorest parts of Maine. Its rural towns and villages, while among the most scenic in the state, are now the site of daily struggles for families with few job opportunities since the region's mills closed down.

Anyone who represents this district in the Statehouse will carry a heavy burden: How to make life better for the hard-hit residents of the district.

That's not an easy thing to do, and it can't be done without help from the governor and fellow lawmakers. What once worked in Maine no longer works, and the one-horse towns with one employer who paid good wages to the locals are largely a thing of the past. All lawmakers need to think about new directions for the Maine economy; the representative from District 88 must especially think in these terms.

For four years, the residents of this district have been represented by Wright H. Pinkham Sr., who is now vying for a third term in the House. Pinkham is a classic rural Maine Republican with a predictable refrain about revamping welfare to dump the "lazy and greedy" cheats on "the gravy train" and restraining the state's "excessive over-regulation."

While he clearly cares about the residents he represents, this isn't the kind of thinking that will move things forward in the state. While there are welfare cheats out there, and there's too much red tape for Maine businesses, it's also true that there aren't enough well-paying jobs in rural Maine and when businesses want to locate here, they often find there aren't enough trained and skilled workers to fill their jobs.

Pinkham's challenger, Democrat Garry Cupples, is a retired school teacher who was chairman of the Somerset County Democrats. While he doesn't have the tenure in government that Pinkham has, he's got a refreshingly constructive vision of how to move into the future. That vision includes better access to higher education as well as an emphasis by the state on developing jobs in the green energy sector. It's a vision that, if implemented, could help Maine invest in the creation of good, home-grown jobs as well as educate workers to fill them -- the kind of solution that this part of rural Maine desperately needs.

The Morning Sentinel endorses Garry Cupples for election in House District 88.