Pingree kicks off campaign vs. Collins Candidates expected to spend $3 million

AUGUSTA – More than 90 percent of all incumbents who run for re-election are returned to the U.S. Senate. That fact does not seem to daunt Democrat Chellie Pingree of North Haven, who kicked off her campaign to unseat U.S. Sen. Susan Collins on Wednesday in front of scores of screaming, sign-toting, balloon-carrying party faithful in the Hall of Flags.

“Most of the Democratic seats gained in the last Senate were women running against incumbents,” Pingree said after the noon rally. She said she intends to take the issues she fought for as a state senator – health care and prescription drugs – to Washington. “Those issues are not being fought for now,” she said. She expects that the race will top the $3 million spent in last year’s race between Sen. Olympia Snowe and former state Senate President Mark Lawrence.

In her Hall of Flags speech, Pingree, 46, vowed to take the prescription drug battle to the nation’s capital.

“We won a great battle in Maine fighting for seniors who are struggling to pay for their prescription drugs. This is a battle we can take to Washington and win there as well. We took on the big pharmaceutical companies. We passed the first law that will lower the prices that our seniors pay for their prescription drugs. We can solve this problem everywhere, not just in Maine. No one should have to choose between taking the medicine they need and putting food on the table,” Pingree said.

Political convention indicates that Pingree will have a difficult if not impossible task beating an incumbent U.S. senator. But it was the same political convention that indicated in 1992 that a Democrat from North Haven (population 350) could not win a Knox County state Senate seat traditionally held by Republicans. But the mother of three matched her small business experience against heavily favored Rockport businessman Jack McCormick and won an upset victory.

Four years later, she was elected Maine senate majority leader. She was unable to run again last November because of term limits and considered a run for the Blaine House before deciding against an intramural battle with fellow Democrat John Baldacci.

Party leaders are grateful that Pingree stepped down from the governor’s race to take on Collins. On Wednesday she was introduced by House Speaker Michael Saxl as “a fighter for all the people. No one listens to people’s concerns more closely and takes those concerns into action. She led the entire country in the fight for lower prescription drug prices. We want that voice to be heard in Washington, D.C.”

“No one thought she could win on prescription drugs, either,” said Senate Majority Leader Beverly Daggett of Augusta. Assistant Majority Leader Sharon Treat of Gardiner said Pingree would bring “practical Maine common sense to problems in Washington.” Pingree will help the most vulnerable people – the young, the poor and the aged, said House Majority Leader Pat Colwell of Gardiner. Dozens of Democratic legislators attended the rally.

Pingree enjoys unusually strong support from her former Knox County constituents.

The workers at Van Baalen in Rockland will never forget the state senator from North Haven. When the plant announced it would close and move its 170 jobs out of state, Pingree not only worked with company officials to cancel the move, but she later assisted them with a 330,000-square- foot expansion of the facility that boosted the work force to more than 300 employees, said Althea Leach of Union, a Van Baalen employee. “She not only talked the talk. She walked the walk,” Leach said Wednesday.

Camden Republican Stuart Smith said the area worked unsuccessfully for a new high school for 20 years before Pingree got involved. In a few weeks Smith’s son will graduate from the new high school. “That school wouldn’t even be started for two more years if Chellie did not get involved. She never forgot the people she went to Augusta to represent,” Smith said.

During her speech, Pingree credited her political “mentor” House Speaker Emeritus Joe Mayo, who attended the Wednesday kickoff. Mayo has been stricken with Lou Gehrig’s disease and is confined to a wheelchair. Pingree also introduced her twenty-something daughter Hannah as her “secret weapon” in the senate campaign.

Republican Collins was elected in 1996 with 49 percent of the vote, edging former Gov. Joseph Brennan and two other candidates. Collins’ press aide Megan Sowards said, “Should Ms. Pingree win her party’s nomination, the people of Maine will see a spirited, issue-oriented race that will present them with a clear choice for the U.S. Senate.”

Wednesday’s rally by Pingree could have been interpreted as a pre-emptive strike to keep other Democrats out of the battle. Portland newspaper executive Chris Harte and former General Services Administration administrator Robert Dunfey are also considering entering the race.