One of the longest political campaigns in Maine history began March 1, when state Sen. John Nutting of Leeds announced his candidacy for the 2nd Congressional District seat, to be decided November 2002. Since then, a dozen Democrats and Republicans have either joined the race or announced an interest in joining. A campaign that begins 15 months from the primaries and 20 from the general election might look like a tedious test of endurance and fund-raising ability, but at least several of the candidates have hit upon a theme that should evolve into a call to action as the election draws near.

The theme, with help from the recent Census, is the loss in the 2nd District of people – the exodus of families searching for opportunities elsewhere, students who go away to college and never return, well-trained employees who get fed up with just scraping by and look for better pay out of state. Much of the 2nd District not only had poor growth compared with the nation but had absolute losses of population that threaten the survival of small towns, strain service centers expected to provide for the needy on smaller tax bases and provide a further abundance of incentives for young skilled people to hop on the highway south and drive as fast as they can out of the region.

Falling populations and regional economic opportunity might seem to be more the province of gubernatorial candidates, but the connection between local vitality and the federal government is strong, as a couple of Bangor aspirants for the congressional seat recently have shown. Republican Tim Woodcock, former mayor and former aide to Sen. William Cohen, sees, for instance, the congressional seat as a chance to work together with representatives from New Hampshire, Vermont and New York to develop the clout that will attract substantial investment in transportation infrastructure. Democrat Sean Faircloth, a former state senator, emphasized while announcing his candidacy last week that Maine needs to do more at the federal level to expand its growing fields in research and development.

Improvements to Maine’s transportation links and to its relatively small R&D effort are both good ideas. In the coming (many) months of this race, the public should expect candidates to offer more on the crucial issues of job opportunity and population loss. The district will require inspired and dedicated leadership over the next decade to fully understand the source of these problems, and it will require someone with the energy to help turn them around. Voters should press the candidates to develop specific agendas for the congressional role in making the district a more desirable place to live and work.

The candidates themselves have an added incentive to work on turning around population losses. A study not long ago estimated that if Maine’s growth maintained its laggard pace through the next Census in 2010, the state could well lose a congressional seat, making the problem of job loss no longer theoretical to that former member of Congress.