"POLITICS AND OTHER MISTAKES"
One day, it will please us to remember even this
By Al Diamon
Try these Maine political trivia questions on your friends.Side effects may include being tagged the "C-SPAN Dork," causing rooms the size of the Augusta Civic Center to empty whenever you enter and being chosen as an op-ed columnist for the Portland Press Herald. If geekiness persists, consult your bartender.
This first question was originally raised on the conservative website "As Maine Goes" (motto, The Last Time Any of Us Had a Date, Ronald Reagan Was Still a Democrat): Who was the most recent U.S. senator from Maine to be a resident of the First Congressional District?
The answer is in the next paragraph. Don't peek.
First, a clarification: U.S. senators aren't elected by district and can live anywhere in the state. Lately, most of them have come out of northern Maine's Second District, but you don't have to travel too far back in time to find an exception. Current Sen. Olympia Snowe, a former Second District congresswoman from Auburn, now resides in Falmouth, and it was from there she was re-elected in 2006.
Caribou native Susan Collins, claimed residence in the First District town of Standish during her 1994 campaign for governor, but reverted to her Second District roots before she won a Senate seat in '96. She now lives in Bangor.
The last senator who was originally from the First District was George Mitchell, who retired in 1994. But, thanks to redistricting, Mitchell's hometown of Waterville is now in the Second District. The most recent non-carpet-bagging senator elected from a town currently in the First District was Frederick Payne of Waldoboro. But Waldoboro wasn't in the First District when Payne won his seat in 1952. The last senator from a place that was in the First District then - and still is - turns out to be Frederick Hale of Portland, who packed it in 1941.
If U.S. Rep. Tom Allen of Portland runs against Collins next year and wins, he'll end a 67-year drought.
Anybody still awake?
The next question grew out of an e-mail from a self-proclaimed "political junkie," who was trying to sell me on the ridiculous idea that after Allen loses the '08 Senate race to Collins, he'll run for state attorney general to set himself up for a gubernatorial bid in 2010. I pointed out that the Legislature chooses the AG, as well as the other constitutional officers - secretary of state and state treasurer - and the positions almost always go to ex-legislators. Which Allen is not.
When was the last time, I asked the junkie, somebody who's never served in the state House or Senate won one of those choice jobs?
Pause. Think. That sucking sound you hear is your social life draining away.
The junkie's answer was Ken Curtis, who was picked by the Democrats as secretary of state two years before his 1966 election as governor. That sounded right to me, but I was required by journalistic ethics (could somebody shut off the oxymoron alarm) to check. When I did, I discovered the junkie was not only off base about Allen's plans, but also wrong to pick Curtis.
In 1978, Republicans kept control of the Legislature by a narrow margin. So narrow that prominent members of the GOP, anticipating a Democratic victory, didn't bother to run for the constitutional posts. That left the Republican nomination for AG to an obscure deputy attorney general, who had never been elected to anything. His name was Richard Cohen.
Which isn't the right answer, either. Because two years later, Democrats came to power and chose a Waterville furniture dealer and party activist as state treasurer. He held the post for eight terms, retiring in 1996. If you came up with Sam Shapiro's name, you deserve a prize.
Maybe you could trade it for a little popularity.
As Collins prepares for her re-election bid next year, does anyone know which of the many government jobs she's held over her career has been quietly dropped from her official biography?
It's not her disastrous third-place finish in the '94 governor's race. Nor is it her stint as commissioner of the Department of Professional and Financial Regulation during the equally disastrous administration of Gov. John McKernan. Although, you could understand if she forgot to mention either of those.
The position Collins pretends didn't happen is the six months she spent in 1993 as deputy state treasurer.
Of Massachusetts.
Maybe she removed that post from her resume because she's afraid mentioning it will re-ignite the controversy over whether she was a Maine resident when she ran for governor. Maybe she dumped it because a few years after she left, several of her ex-co-workers were convicted of embezzling $9.4 million. Maybe it's this: "We're trying to focus on her biggest accomplishments," said spokesperson Jen Burita. "We don't mention her picking potatoes, either."
Except, they do. Collins' TV spots often remind voters she spent time digging spuds.
But that job leaves a different kind of dirt under your fingernails.
No comment is too trivial to e-mail me at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
