The new leader of the Democratic Party in Lincoln County takes over after a disappointing 2014 election for Democrats across the state and the nation.
Lincoln County was no exception. Democrats did not field candidates for three of seven seats in the Maine House of Representatives, including a Boothbay region seat held by a Democrat for the previous four consecutive terms. Democratic incumbents lost three more races, all to relative newcomers.
Lincoln County Democratic Committee Chairman Jim Torbert, 68, of Whitefield, will lead the local party as it attempts to reverse these losses in 2016. Torbert was elected chairman Jan. 20.
Torbert discussed his priorities as chairman, his philosophy, and his diverse background in both career and politics during an interview at Sheepscot General in Whitefield Feb. 6.
As chairman, Torbert will seek to recruit strong candidates and volunteers, promote party values, and support local Democratic legislators.
“We want to have a viable candidate everywhere possible – in every district within the county (or) that touches the county,” Torbert said.
Torbert also wants to promote the party in a more effective manner. “I think we need to get better at presenting big ideas in ways that are not simplistic, but are graspable and memorable,” he said.
Those values “include a concern for the environment and a concern for a modicum of economic equity and social equity” as well as concern for public education and “basic civility in our public discourse,” Torbert said.
Torbert brings a wide array of experiences to this new challenge.
He has been a public school teacher and a volunteer for numerous campaigns, as well as a farmer, logger, social worker, and U.S. Peace Corps alumnus.
Torbert is the son of the late Horace Torbert, a career diplomat who was the U.S. ambassador to Bulgaria and Somalia. “I grew up all over the place,” he said. “I’m a foreign service brat.”
Torbert was born in Boston. He graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass. and Columbia University in New York City. He joined the U.S. Peace Corps after college. For 2½ years, he worked with farmers in rural Nicaragua.
Life in the backcountry of a developing nation where his $75 monthly stipend was enough to make him “probably the second-richest guy in town” was an “eye-opener,” he said.
After the Peace Corps, Torbert was a social worker in San Francisco, a caretaker of a ranch in northern California, a logger, and a farmer in Arkansas and Maryland.
Torbert and his wife, Theta Torbert, bought a farm on East River Road in Whitefield in 1983. Jim Torbert found work as a French and Spanish teacher at Hall-Dale High School in Farmingdale. His wife raised dairy goats on the farm.
Torbert would go on to teach 18 years at Hall-Dale, two at Messalonskee High School in Oakland, and two at Lincoln Academy in Newcastle.
While at Hall-Dale, he helped expand foreign language instruction to all K-8 students and nearly triple participation among high school students.
From his college years to retirement, Torbert always had an active interest in government.
He first volunteered for political campaigns as an 18-year-old college freshman in the mid-1960s, helping out on Robert Kennedy’s run to represent New York in the U.S. Senate and Republican John Lindsay’s campaign for mayor of New York City.
He has volunteered with Democratic campaigns in almost every election since. He first registered to vote for the 1968 election – the voting age was 21 – and he registered as a Democrat.
“I think I became a Democrat in part because of my experience in both going to college in New York City and later on in the Peace Corps,” Torbert said.
“I think most Republicans don’t feel that the government has a role in encouraging any kind of social equity,” Torbert said. “I think most Republicans would agree with my statement on that, and I disagree with that. I think the government most certainly does.”
His experiences in public education and social work have also influenced his politics.
“I think (public education) is a field that’s often maligned by people on the right,” Torbert said, and the programs he worked on in California were “mischaracterized” and opposed by the Republican Party.
Since retirement, he has become increasingly active with the local Democratic party, particularly with efforts to support Somerville Sen. Chris Johnson.
Torbert cites the environment, public education, retirement security, and social equality among the issues that drive him.
“The middle class is simply not keeping pace, in terms of income, with the growth of the economy,” Torbert said. “It’s not equitable and it’s not healthy and ultimately it’s going to be self-defeating.”
“I would like to see the minimum wage rise to a living wage,” Torbert said. “The arguments that that would be inflationary have repeatedly been debunked.”
Torbert believes the government can preserve Social Security for future generations with an “entirely reasonable” change to the Social Security tax.
The government currently levies Social Security tax on the first $118,500 of income, according to the U.S. Social Security Administration. The cap rises every year, but has not kept pace with inflation, Torbert said. “It’s entirely reasonable to double that,” he said.
Away from his responsibilities with the party, Torbert helps around Treble Ridge Farm, the family farm now run by his daughter and son-in-law, Alice and Rufus Percy.
The Torberts live nearby and often care for their three young grandsons who live on the farm. The couple has another daughter and four more grandchildren in Michigan.
Torbert chairs the Whitefield Planning Board and sits on the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association Board of Directors.
He has traveled to El Salvador to act as interpreter for the association’s El Salvador Sistering Project, which works with grass-roots sustainable agriculture organizations in the small Central American nation.
Torbert loves to read and enjoys the outdoors, where he likes to cross-country ski and hike.
