Suddenly, throughout the land, Campaign 2002 is under way. What an amazing phenomenon – there’s no official start to the race for office, yet politicians just know when to go. It’s an instinct they seem to share with other species known for moving en masse by some mystical signal, like swallows. Buzzards, too.

The various states have their own special ways to mark the advent of the electoral season. For example, in Texas, where I once lived, politicians make burnt offerings to the voting public, a local custom known as the Kickoff Barbecue. In Indiana, where I grew up, it’s The Passing of the Graft, a more private ceremony in which party bosses anoint select candidates with precious oils squeezed from gamblers, pimps, bootleggers and large construction firms specializing in bridge and highway projects.

Maine is, as is so often the case, unique. Precisely how it began no one can say, but the tradition here, quaint and quirky, is for the political parties to begin the quest for power by making monumental blunders. This year, the parties have outdone themselves by serving up riches of embarrassment.

The Republicans were first off the mark with the Wathen Affair. Mainers who went to bed one night in September quite comfortable in the knowledge that they had a perfectly competent and content chief justice of the state supreme court were quite surprised come the dawn to learn that Daniel Wathen had it with the judicial gig and wanted to be a GOP governor instead.

This also seemed to come as quite a surprise to Mr. Wathen, who apparently had no clue as to the identities of party leaders or to key elements of the party platform. Party leaders were equally nonplused and apparently figured that the best thing to do with an unexpected candidate possessing a sterling reputation and impeccable credentials as a public servant was to ignore him.

So after a six-week campaign that largely consisted of announcing the hiring of campaign staff and expressing annoyance at pesky reporters who kept asking questions about issues and stuff, the candidate who’d built a career on making decisions decided that, to paraphrase his explanation, he didn’t want to be the kind of person he’d have to be to be a politician. It was a discomfiting development, but at least no one was hurt. Except, of course, for those staffers who gave up steady jobs to work for a campaign that never was.

Credit the next blooper to the Greens. Though relative newcomers to official party status, they should know that a basic rule of the game is to never, ever, hold a highly publicized campaign rally in a hall you can’t fill – like the rally they held last weekend in a hall with a capacity of several hundred that attracted all of 35 souls. Empty chairs don’t vote, nor do they, as the news reports proved, photograph particularly well.

The purpose of the event was to introduce the two gubernatorial candidates that will give Maine Greens their first contested primary. Greens say this is a true contest between differing views and is a sign the party is maturing. Critics say it’s a sham, nothing more than an orchestrated ruse to get the $200,000 in public campaign funds they’ll qualify for with a contested primary. The Greens may be sincere about the differing views deal, but their plan to mail out nomination papers for two competing candidates in the same envelope sort of weakens their case.

Democrats were the last to join in the fun, but they made up for it with the sheer size of their gaffe. Accusing a United States senator of willfully breaking federal election law and of violating the public trust is serious business. It’s good to be right. A shred of evidence would also help.

The Democrats dropped their bomb Tuesday, alleging that Sen. Susan Collins, who’s up for re-election next year, committed this breaking and violating by failing to report 15 campaign contributions totaling $25,000. Not only that, the choleric Dems complained, some of these contributions – most of $1,000 -were from (easily shocked readers should avert their eyes) business interests.

The senator’s staff stormed through newsrooms across the state the next day, lugging along a good six inches of documents – actual, highly detailed and incredibly boring Federal Election Commission forms – that thoroughly defused the bomb. Having seen these documents, I think it actually would be more accurate to say they put it to sleep.

The abridged version of why the Democrats got this completely wrong is that sometimes contributions, or even mere promises of contributions, are reported by the donor to the FEC in one of the six-month reporting periods but the money is received by the candidate, and properly reported, in another. People with checking accounts, or who’ve been promised money they’ve yet to see, will understand the concept.

Not content to step in it with just one foot, the Dems came back for more after the Collins rebuttal with the alarming revelation that she took money from something called W/N 2001, a golf outing fund-raiser held by Sens. John Warner and Don Nickles, described with alarm as “two of the most conservative senators in Washington.” That’s right, Maine – there are golf-playing conservatives in the Senate and Sue Collins seems OK with that.

Besides the mind-numbing documentation, there are two reasons the Democrats’ claim is silly. The Collins campaign has raised more than $1 million; risking political ruin to hide 2.5 percent of that makes no sense, even if the contributions are from such subversives as Coke and Federal Express. Two of the contributions in question are from labor unions. The only thing would keep a Republican from bragging loud and long about such a rare occurrence would be the sheer shock of it all.

Now, the Democrats are resigned to muttering that the Collins explanation “does not pass the straight face test.” That once-colorful expression of disbelief has become an awfully tiresome and empty phrase, but it has special meaning for Maine voters in 2002, whether Republican, Democrat or Green. Watch your parties bumble along and the test will be keeping yours.

Bruce Kyle is the News’ assistant editorial page editor.