While a group of Democratic activists was packing it in after failing to reach consensus on a candidate worth backing, attention in the Maine governor’s race turned restlessly to the son of the independent who stole the show 20 years ago.

Interested in running? No way (at least for now), says James B. Longley Jr., whose observations about the state of the state and the lack of focus in the crowded field of gubernatorial contestants may explain part of the reason why New Leadership ’94 disbanded without anointing a candidate.

Any group in the market for New Leadership should shop around, look in unexpected places. Dialogues with candidates-for-all-seasons are bound to prove disappointing. In contrast, Longley’s recent observations were clear, sometimes insightful and showed a knack for reflecting what people are thinking at the grass roots:

There’s too much regulation.

Taxes are too high.

“The economy has been going in one direction and our political community has been going in another.”

For these and other reasons, Maine has big problems, however, “It’s obvious that nobody’s got any real confidence that anybody understands what we can do about it.”

Longley is a Republican. Even if he were running, he would not have been interviewed by New Leadership, a large, politically unwieldy collection of special interests which grilled only Ds and a selected independent in seeking a champion for the coming campaign.

Which is too bad. They might have learned something.