My choices are:
- Allan Martin (Prefers Republican Party)
- Jim McIntire (Prefers Democratic Party)
The primary job for the state treasurer is managing the state’s money. My favorite candidate came in third in the primary. ChangMook Sohn was the state economist and would have brought to the table an economist’s outlook.
Left in the race is an administrator from the Treasurer’s office who has spent much of his career as a government treasurer and a former state representative who is an economist. One has a lot of experience with running treasuries in the state and knows the issues they face. The other possibly will have insight into the economy and will be able to make better investments of our money because of this. However, McIntire hasn’t been out there with an economics blog or frequent publication in the press about the economy, so I have no way to compare his insights with what actually happened. As a professor, perhaps he’s had some academic publications. This is the thing, quite a large majority of the public
economists (i.e., those who have been profligate with their opinions) completely missed or dismissed the housing bubble. I have no way to tell if McIntire is one of those people. What comes up when I search for articles written by him are micro-economics papers on the minimum wage and decisions on training. What I’m worried about is whether he falls into GroupThink like a lot of other economists have.
I kind of have to take a leap of faith here. I’m going to vote for McIntire on the guess that he has some insight, or at least can recognize it well from the people he employs if he wins. I think Allan Martin would be a capable administrative treasurer, and I would vote for him if times were good or McIntire had some indication of being a poor economist. I hope he stays on in the treasurer’s office under McIntire, should McIntire win. But if he doesn’t there are other folks with his background that could replace him.
So my vote will be for McIntire.