Despite a new poll giving him a whopping 55 percent of the vote in a five-way race and an approval rating nudging 110 percent, Gov. Angus King is taking nothing for granted and promises a vigorous campaign. None of his opponents could be reached for comment, mostly because we can’t quite recall who they are.

Also unavailable for comment is Jacquelyn Morrow Lewis Underwood, who forced a runoff in Oklahoma’s Democratic primary for U.S. Senate by finishing second last week, with 21 percent of the vote, out of a four-candidate field. Quite an accomplishment for a 69-year-old homemaker with no prior political experience. Especially one who passed away in early July. “I don’t think many of (the voters) knew she was dead,” explained the party’s executive director, an assessment that seems strangely apropos to Maine’s gubernatorial race.

It’s been a bang-up inaugural season for The Cat, the high-speed Bar Harbor-to-Yarmouth ferry, to say the least: Four speeding tickets in three weeks, extensive damage to other boats and painful injuries to other sailors. A spokesman for the ferry said company officials “are very pleased” with operations so far, although the skuttlebutt is that the Cat’s crew still needs to improve its sacking and pillaging skills.

“It’s difficult to explain,” is how Maine Department of Labor analyst Dana Evans explained the rise last month in the state’s unemployment rate while it fell everywhere else. Labor Commissioner Valerie Landry tried: “Due to tight labor markets, employment did not rise as much as it usually does between June and July. Unemployment, already low, did not fall as much as it usually does between June and July. These conditions, combined with the seasonal adjustment process, caused the seasonally adjusted rate to rise.” We’ll stick with Mr. Evans’ version.

Speaking of employment, political campaigns and incomprehensible statements, Gov. King was in Trenton last week to praise a boatbuilder for keeping its jobs in state and to urge the company president to spread the word about doing business in Maine. Since town officials already concede the deal Trenton gave the Hinckley Co. — a $1 building lot and a 15-year tax-break — is one it can’t afford to give anyone else, and since the other contenders for the new boatyard were such exotic locales as Bangor and Brewer, the word to be spread seems to be “oink.”

Tommy Hilfiger, the designer who puts his name in really huge letters on your kid’s clothes, is pulling the plug on an advertising campaign that shows pretty, intern-age models lounging around what appears to be the Oval Office. The company says the much-criticized ads weren’t meant as a political statement, but rather as a “celebration of the spirit of America.” Which somehow makes it seem worse.