As the June primaries approach and the campaigns heat up, voters in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District are blessed. There are 10 contenders for the job being vacated by Rep. John Baldacci, four Republicans, six Democrats; all are credible candidates, accomplished and thoughtful individuals with something to offer.

Voters are blessed in another way, although it is a mixed blessing. While there are many important issues worthy of debate, there is one issue that dominates, that provides the public with one focal point for its decision-making – the very survival of Maine’s 2nd Congressional District. One of the most chilling messages that came out of Census 2000 is that this economically struggling district’s population loss to the more prosperous 1st District could well lead to its elimination after Census 2010. (If you think it can’t happen, consider Maine’s 3rd congressional seat was lost after the 1960 Census.)

This is term limits of the cruelest form. It means a diminished Maine voice in Congress and a diminished northern Maine voice in the delegation it sends to Congress. Worse, it is a signal of defeat, irrefutable evidence that the part of Maine that is not within the Boston sphere of economic influence cannot sustain itself.

All 10 candidates address the economic issue, all certainly are concerned about it and several even have put forth ideas that go beyond general observations about the need for more good jobs. None, however, have put together an idea as specific, on point and fleshed out as has Republican Tim Woodcock.

Mr. Woodcock understands that the economic future of northern Maine lies not in trying to get closer to Boston, but in forging a new economic sphere that stretches from the Canadian Maritimes across northern New England, southern Quebec and upstate New York to eastern Ontario, a sphere that encircles a population of 25 million. This east-west swath across two countries, which Mr. Woodcock calls the North Atlantic Trade Corridor, is a natural, historical and cultural alliance currently stymied by the lack of efficient east-west transportation.

It has been eight years since NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, bound the United States, Canada and Mexico together in a continental trading partnership. It has been four years since Congress, recognizing that a continental trading partnership requires continental trade routes, passed the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA 21), legislation that gave federal priority to the development of these routes. To date, every region of the country has TEA 21 projects under way. Every region, that is, except the North Atlantic Trade Corridor.

Mr. Woodcock has spent the last year and a half promoting a resolution he drafted directing the U.S. Department of Transportation to conduct a study, in cooperation with Transport Canada, on the development of these vital east-west trade routes. His resolution has been adopted by local governments, state legislatures and congressional delegations throughout the region. Although Canada already is investing heavily in its east-west trade routes, there is widespread recognition of the impediment northern New England poses and broad support for Mr. Woodcock’s initiative.

Whether Mr. Woodcock will continue this initiative as a member of Congress is up to, first, Republican primary voters in June and, depending upon that outcome, all general election voters in November. What is important is that this initiative be continued by whoever that next member of Congress may be. That is the one question all 2nd District voters should ask all candidates on the one issue.