Delusions of GOP grandeur?

The trouble with 1996 is it doesn’t appear to offer a lot of opportunities for ambitious young politicians who happen to be Republicans. The GOP already holds most of the top-of-the-ticket slots that come up for grabs next year, leaving those party members with a lust for life in the District of Columbia to douse their yearnings with cold showers and salt peter milkshakes.

That is, unless their craving overcomes their common sense, and they decide to challenge an incumbent in the Republican primary.

State Sen. Philip Harriman of Yarmouth is harboring those sorts of feverish thoughts. Harriman is considering running for the 1st District congressional seat currently held by GOP Rep. James Longley, Jr.

At first glance, Harriman seems be a normal guy. While that gives him an edge over Longley, the congressperson most likely to show up on “The X-Files,” it hardly explains why he’s contemplating a move that could cause many of his more politically astute colleagues to suggest the next time he decides to make some additions to his wardrobe, he give top priority to acquiring a strait jacket.

But Harriman isn’t crazy. He’s just suffering from a prolonged arousal of whatever bodily organ secretes the hormone that causes ambition. His painful problem began during his first campaign for the Legislature back in 1992. Harriman was recruited to run against then-Senate Majority Leader Nancy Clark of Freeport. Although Clark, a teacher, treated most people as if they were errant school children with behavioral disorders, she was a solid favorite to leave Harriman in her chalk dust. But Republican strategists, backed by a $100,000 war chest supplied by a group of business people, conceived a plan to link Clark to Senate President Charlie Pray and House Speaker John Martin. The advertising campaign argued the three were singlehandedly responsible for everything from high taxes to global warming to the lack of any decent music on the radio. Voters may not have believed that, but they bought the idea that casting their ballots for Clark was tantamount to endorsing Martin and Pray.

Harriman, who had been running the kind of dogged but uninspired campaign that usually earns the title of “good loser,” suddenly found himself in front of the television lights being asked how it felt to have accomplished a miracle. Headlines heralded his arrival in Augusta as an event matched in historical significance only by the first manned landing on the moon and the discovery of baking soda toothpaste. His name began turning up on the list of potential GOP candidates for governor, an honor somewhat diminished by the list being nearly as thick as the Portland telephone directory and later discovered to contain the index of every AKC registered beagle in the state.

This was still pretty heady stuff for a guy who’d spent much of his adult life selling insurance and retirement plans. So heady that the Harriman cranium came under serious expansion pressure. As

symptoms of acute tumescence of the noggin set in, Harriman embarked upon political explorations that succeeded only in squandering the goodwill generated by his unexpected victory. The amount of sarcasm detected in the new state senator’s wake often exceeded healthful levels. His elders in the Legislature were pleased he had knocked off Clark, but they weren’t about to carry him around in a sedan chair, and fan his bursting brow with palm leaves, a reaction that both puzzled Harriman and annoyed him.

By 1994, Harriman had abandoned plans to be anointed as the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee, but was increasingly intrigued with the idea of running for Senate president. After winning an easy re-election bid, he set about campaigning, only to discover no one was interested. Afew days before the Republican caucus was to choose its candidate, a GOP headcounter estimated Harriman’s support at “one vote, his own.” He dropped out of the race shortly afterward.

“I was viewed as too independent,” Harriman explained. “I challenged the status quo. People wanted to select a leader who would look at the horizon and work with both parties, but that wasn’t as important as picking someone who would carry the party flag and had developed institutional relationships.”

Harriman denied he’s been left out of the loop by the new Republican leadership, insisting he got the committee assignment he

requested (Business and Economic Development) only after turning down a plea to head the powerful Taxation Committee. “I didn’t want that,” he said, “because most people think the governor was serious when he said no new taxes. So the Taxation Committee will spend lots of time hearing lots of bills, but making no substantive changes.”

As for his plans for 1996, Harriman refused to rule out a bid to oust Spaceman Longley, calling such talk “premature. I’m not scheming and dreaming now about how I’m going to take the next step. I’ll give you an honest answer in June.”

Those who consider that response sufficient proof to convict the accused of delusions of grandeur should consider that Harriman hasn’t said a word about running against Republican Sen. William Cohen.

Yet.

Al Diamon is a television commentator, free-lance writer and weekly NEWS columnist.