Carter gears up fund raising for Blaine House run

Anticipating a run as a publicly financed candidate under Maine’s Clean Election option, Jonathan Carter has begun circulating a letter designed to raise what are known as seed money contributions to get his campaign off the ground.

“I am taking the step of trying to become a Clean candidate for governor because I believe I can make a contribution to the future well-being of Maine,” Carter wrote.

“As a friend, I am asking for your help. As a candidate, I may be the one in the limelight, but I will never forget that it is all of you who have turned the lights on.”

Accompanying his fund-raising letter, Carter is circulating a consultant’s analysis highlighting the potential strengths of his candidacy.

Survey research by Abacus Associates indicates, he wrote, “my high name recognition (63 percent), my low negatives (15 percent), and my increasing popularity and support among likely voters.”

Carter was away from his North New Portland home on Saturday and did not respond immediately to an Associated Press message. The fund-raising letter and consultant’s analysis were provided to the AP by a Carter campaign supporter.

“If I am elected governor,” Carter wrote, “imagine the type of team we could appoint to lead this state – a conservation biologist rather than a paper corporation executive as the head of the Department of Conservation, a teacher leading educational reform, a worker fighting for livable wages at the Department of Labor, etc.” Carter wrote that in a crowded race a winner could emerge with as little as 30 percent of the vote.

“I believe, and the survey supports, that I can garner at least 30 percent of the vote with a well-thought-out strategy and message, an extensive grassroots effort and a quality, professional media campaign,” he wrote.

To date, four-term U.S. Rep. John Baldacci of Bangor appears to be unopposed for next year’s Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

On the Republican side, former state legislators Peter Cianchette of South Portland and Jim Libby of Buxton are competing for the GOP nod.

In July, former CMP Group chief David Flanagan of Manchester filed as an independent candidate for governor.

In Maine’s Clean Election system, a participating candidate is permitted to accept a limited amount of money from private sources to help collect qualifying contributions.

No single contribution may exceed $100 and the total amount of seed money contributions is limited to $50,000 for gubernatorial candidates.

To become eligible for public financing, a candidate for governor must receive $5 qualifying contributions from at least 2,500 registered voters.

Maximum payments possible to match higher spending by non-participating candidates stand to reach about $1.2 million.

Libby, like Carter, is seeking to run as a Clean Election candidate.

In the 1992 general election for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District seat, Carter ran as a Green candidate and took 9 percent as Republican incumbent Olympia Snowe turned back Democrat Patrick McGowan’s second challenge by 49 percent to 42 percent.

In 1994, Carter finished fourth in a four-way gubernatorial contest won by independent Angus King.

In that election, King edged former Democratic Gov. Joseph Brennan by 35 percent to 34 percent. Republican Susan Collins, since elected to the U.S. Senate and up for re-election next year, came in third with 23 percent and Carter took 6 percent under the Green Party banner.

King, completing a second term as governor, is barred by term limits from seeking re-election next year.