WASHINGTON – Former Maine Gov. John McKernan discussed the possibility of becoming education secretary with the Bush transition team before the new president settled on Houston schools Superintendent Roderick D. Paige.

McKernan, a member of the education advisory group to the Bush-Cheney presidential transition, said Saturday at a congressional delegation breakfast co-hosted by his wife, Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, that since he was participating in shaping the issues, the early discussions turned to whether he would be the right person for the job.

“I said I wasn’t, not now, but maybe in the future, especially if there’s an eight-year Bush administration,” McKernan said.

On Saturday evening, before the presidential inaugural balls were to begin, Snowe and McKernan attended a small private dinner with Paige at the Madison Hotel in Washington.

McKernan got to know the father of the new president when George H.W. Bush was president and vacationing in Kenne-bunkport. At the time, McKernan was governor and Snowe was in Congress.

Snowe had said she met the new president only casually in that era, but had campaigned with him in Portland during the presidential race.

The incoming administration has said education will be a priority, and McKernan said he hopes that it will be advanced quickly. “It should touch all the bases,” he said.

Over the weekend, hundreds of other Mainers made the long trip to Washington to celebrate the turn from eight years of Democratic rule in the White House to a renewed opportunity to have a Republican as chief executive and commander-in-chief.

Don Collins and his wife, former Caribou, Maine, Mayor Pat Collins, were on hand for a private dinner Saturday night away from the presidential inaugural ball hubbub with their daughter, who just happens to be the state’s junior senator, Susan Collins.

“I don’t see them that often down here,” Susan Collins said, offering introductions. “I’m so glad they could make it down.”

Added her mother: “We haven’t been down since Ronald Reagan” for an inaugural.

In those final hours of the Clinton presidency, Maine’s political elite were – like the senior Collins and his daughter – already looking ahead. A joint breakfast by the delegation featured vats of orange juice, fresh browned apple, cherry and cheese danishes and muffins (which generally were shunned by the crowd).

Ross J. Connelly, who ran the Bush-Cheney campaign in Maine, was on hand to press the flesh. Connelly ran against Democratic Rep. Tom Allen in 1998. FBI Director Louis B. Freeh showed up and so did Washington super-lobbyist Tom Korogolos.

Dwayne Bickford, executive director of the Maine Republican Party, was there to talk politics – talking about hopes to win what may be an open 2nd Congressional District seat in 2002 if Rep. John Baldacci, a Democrat, follows through with a plan to run for governor.

Also attending was Poland Community School second-grader John Callahan II, 7 years old, with his parents. Callahan became interested in the presidential race and thought Bush was the guy. He wanted to go to the big party. It took a call to Sen. Collins to secure tickets for the family.

At breakfast, Callahan fiddled with a committee-room microphone and seemed ready to fall asleep at 10 a.m. “There’s a lot going on,” his father said.