For the first time since 1990, when the GOP re-nominated John McKernan and the Democrats Joseph Brennan, neither party has a contested primary in its gubernatorial race this year. Indeed, it’s only the second time this has happened since 1960. (That’s when the GOP retained incumbent John Reed and the Democrats nominated Frank Coffin.) The U.S. Senate primaries this year also feature unopposed contenders. The lament of voters in our recent primaries that there were too many candidates to choose from won’t be heard this year.
While both major parties are internally united in their designation of a standard bearer for each of the state-wide races, there’s plenty of action in the 2nd District Congressional primary in each party. The contest between Kevin Raye and Bruce Poliquin in the GOP and that featuring Emily Cain and Troy Jackson in the Democratic are both personally and ideologically heated. The person each party nominates will likely go on to an equally spirited fall campaign. It’s one that may determine who controls the entire Congress. Maine’s 2nd, the largest in area east of the Mississippi, is seen as “in-play” this year.
Moreover, if history is any indication, whoever the 2nd District nominates and ultimately elects will likely go on to play a leading role not only in a future state-wide campaign but also stands a good chance of making a mark on the national stage as well.
In the 1820s, during Maine‘s first decade of statehood, we were afforded the right to send seven men (women wouldn’t win that potential prerogative until a century later) to the U.S. House. Among those elected to Congress from Maine in that decade was Portland attorney Stephen Longfellow, father of the future poet. In the 1830s, Maine was given the right to elect eight. By the 1840s when a young Hannibal Hamlin was serving in the U.S. House from the Bangor area – making the fateful acquaintance of a 35-year old colleague from Illinois named Lincoln – our entitlement had fallen to seven. Gradually, by 1932, we were cut down to three.
It was in 1962, during the administration of John F. Kennedy, that Maine was given its present allocation of two Congressional districts. (JFK is not to be faulted for the demotion. Census bureau statistics dictated the result. If Maine families had been as large as the one in which he had been raised, the state’s apportionment might have been different, however.)
The first year in the contemporary era of Congressional apportionment, 1962, featured the election in the 2nd District of Aroostook County’s Cliff McIntire. (His home was less than 10 miles from that of the then 9-year-old Susan Collins. ) McIntire was the sitting incumbent from what had been the state’s old 3rd District, and triumphed over Auburn attorney Bill Hathaway. Both would certainly be heard from again, however, McIntire going on to become the GOP standard bearer for the U.S. Senate two years later and Hathaway himself winning election to the seat McIntire had just vacated.
Though McIntire lost his race for the senate, his 1964 ascension to a place on the general election ballot in a statewide contest would foreshadow the influence that those elected to Congress in Maine’s 2nd District would have in the 50 years since. Hathaway, his successor in the 2nd District seat, would, by 1972, win election to the U.S. Senate over Margaret Chase Smith, herself a 1940s alumnus of a predecessor to the present 2nd District. These footsteps would be followed by Hathaway’s own successor in Congress, future U.S. Defense Secretary Bill Cohen, who unseated Hathaway from the U.S. Senate in 1978.
Cohen’s place in the 2nd was taken by none other than Olympia Snowe, who would also go on to become a celebrated national public figure. After 16 years representing the upper part of Maine in the nation’s lower House, Snowe in turn was herself elected to the U.S. Senate. This election, in 1994, illustrated not only the continuing prominence of a 2nd District Congressional seat as a springboard to higher office but, also, the corresponding disadvantage of a 1st District position, Snowe winning in a landslide over 1st District Congressman Tom Andrews of South Portland.
The same 1994 election in which Maine voters promoted Snowe to the body sometimes referred to as the most exclusive club in the world also saw the 2nd District bestow its favor on Bangor’s John Baldacci. Like his illustrious predecessors, Baldacci would likewise find the 2nd District a hospitable base from which to successfully capture state-wide office. In Baldacci’s case, this would be his election in 2002 to the highest office Maine has to offer, the governorship.
Present 2nd District Congressman Michael Michaud in his own quest for the Blaine House might be encouraged by the track record of his predecessors. However, the omens for Gov. Paul LePage and Independent Eliot Cutler are also formidable. In LePage’s case this is the precedent where no sitting incumbent governor seeking re-election since 1966 has been denied a second term. His own geographic roots, Waterville, are the same as two of his nine predecessors in office, Edmund Muskie and Clinton Clauson. Cutler can point to Maine’s extraordinary tendency to favor independent aspirants for the position. No state in America has voted for an independent for governor in as many elections as Maine has, three times in the last 40-years.
We will soon know the names of which two of the four contenders for nomination to Congress in Maine’s 2nd District will appear on this year’s general election ballot. Their names may also be joined by Independent Blaine Richardson, himself the recipient of a 40 percent vote when he ran as a conservative in the GOP primary two years ago. Whoever they are, one can be assured that if the last half-century’s history is any indication, the name of the ultimate winner will also be in play for even higher office in the years to come.
It’s one of the reasons why Tuesday’s primary may not only be a likely semi-final event for the future of Maine but a possible prequel for national drama as well.
Paul H. Mills, is a Farmington attorney well known for his analyses and historical understanding of public affairs in Maine. He can be reached by e-mail: pmills@myfairpoint.net.
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