McGowan for Maine

MIKE LANGE
Mike's Column

January 6, 2010

For the second time in four years, someone I know personally is running for governor of Maine.

Pat McGowan of Hallowell officially threw his cap into the Democratic free-for-all yesterday (Jan. 5) in a three-stop tour that started in Fort Kent and ended in Portland.
The last candidate I knew – Republican Chandler Woodcock – crashed and burned in 2006. He survived a three-way primary, but faced a popular Democratic incumbent in the general election.

As it turned out, Gov. John Baldacci was re-elected with only 38 percent of the vote, thus earning the nickname of “Gov 38” from Maine’s hard-core conservatives.
I hired Woodcock to work weekends at the radio station I managed when he was enrolled at the University of Maine at Farmington.

He was also commissioner of the local softball league and umpired some games. As a deeply religious person, he gave me a verbal warning a few times about my colorful language on the diamond.

Anyhow, I was pleased to see him run even though the results weren’t very good.

McGowan will have to run through a gauntlet of Democrats to win the June primary, not just two opponents like Woodcock faced four years ago.

The list of Democrats looking to succeed Baldacci is impressive. Three of them – Elizabeth “Libby” Mitchell, John Richardson and Steven Rowe – are former Maine House speakers. Mitchell is the current president of the Maine Senate, Richardson just stepped down as commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development and Rowe served as Maine’s attorney general.

McGowan has a resume that meets or beats all three of them, so I won’t bore you with details. You can look it up at www.mcgowanformaine.com.
I first knew him when he ran McGowan’s Market in Canaan and served in the Maine House. More than once I saw him rush back from Augusta and jump into the fuel oil truck to make deliveries when his normal driver couldn’t make it into work.

He fishes, hunts, flies his own plane, rides an ATV and would just as soon spend a weekend in the woods of Seboomook as the city of South Portland.

While the other three Democratic front-runners are nice folks, they’re also dull. I can’t picture Libby Mitchell on a four-wheeler or John Richardson delivering fuel oil.

While I’ve known McGowan for 20-plus years, I’m not sure what his political philosophy is today. He used to be known as a conservative Democrat when he served in the legislature. It’s hard to find one in Maine today. I think they’re on the endangered species list.The right-wing talk show hosts swear that the GOP will make a comeback this year based on the country’s perceived dissatisfaction with President Obama.

Well, I hate to burst their bubble, but few people in Maine pay any attention to national politics. That’s why they keep re-electing Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to the Senate even when the Democrats are dominating the rest of the nation.

But don’t sell the Republicans short in the Maine governor’s sweepstakes this year, either. State Sen. Peter Mills, who has been running for governor since he was a senior in high school – or so it seems – is back in the fray along with a gaggle of business executives like Matt Jacobson and Les Otten.

There are few candidates in both parties who couldn’t be recognized if their faces were on a milk carton. Primaries are great for culling out the has-beens.

So let the games begin.

May the best person win in each party, and let’s hope the votes make a sensible choice in November.