In the good old days, politicians campaigned for office by actually getting out to mingle with the commoners in their quest for votes, rather than hustling potential voters by saturating the public airwaves with mindless, nonstop television advertising as in today’s election campaigns.

Thirty-one years ago a young Republican by the name of Bill Cohen, the youthful mayor of Bangor, slogged through the August humidity while fending off mosquitoes, yapping dogs and distracted motorists on a meandering six-week walk of several hundred miles across the state from Bethel to Fort Kent. Cohen hoped the publicity stunt would help him defeat Democrat Elmer Violette of Van Buren in November to become Maine’s 2nd District congressman. It did.

Cohen won that 1972 race, served three terms in the House, three more in the United States Senate, and wrapped up a high-octane political career as secretary of defense in the Clinton administration before returning to private life.

“The Walk,” as it became known in the summer of ’72, was an idea stolen from Illinois politician Dan Walker, who had stolen it from Florida Sen. Lawton Chiles, who no doubt had lifted it from someone else. Walker – aptly named – had walked across Illinois to defeat Chicago’s Daley machine in the 1972 Democratic primary. Chiles had hoofed it across Florida and into the United States Senate in 1970.

In casual jeans, boots, properly faded blue work shirt, and his Just Plain Folks mode, Cohen began his shank’s mare journey. With near-saturation media coverage as he progressed east and north, spending nights in the homes of potential constituents and shooting hoops with their kids in the back yard, the stunt gained momentum. By late August, when he got to Violette’s turf in the heavily Democratic St. John Valley, even some hard-shell Democrats were gushing over him. Subsequent campaign walk-and-talk routines became a Cohen trademark.

I encountered him one day dawg-trotting along an empty stretch of U.S. Route 1 near Grand Isle and wrote that he was the only guy I knew who sent his shirts out to be wrinkled, presumably to demonstrate his kinship with The Working Man. As an author some years later, Cohen exhibited an impressive memory. “From the guy who sends his shirts out to be wrinkled…” he autographed a book he sent to me.

Memories of the well-chronicled campaign walk flowed this week when I checked my mail slot at the newspaper and found the book, “This Splendid Game” (Lexington Books, 241 pages, softcover) by Chris Potholm, a Bowdoin College professor of government, political junkie and long-valued source for Maine political writers. The book covers Maine political campaigns and elections from 1940 through 2002. Potholm, a Bowdoin classmate of Cohen’s, was Cohen’s campaign 1972 campaign manager and the guy who talked Cohen into taking what turned out to be a life-altering giant step forward.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe even pure genius.

“What better way to show a ‘new’ kind of Republican, a ‘man of the people’ than to have him show up, hot and sweaty on their doorstep?” Potholm asks.

Summers back then were used mainly for such light campaigning. The candidate, an outstanding athlete, was in excellent shape. Tradition-bound Democrats were not likely to attempt to duplicate the stunt. Advertising dollars were hard to come by, so the free publicity would certainly help out. Et cetera…

Still, when Cohen began the walk on July 19 at Gilead, hard by the New Hampshire border, Potholm had second thoughts. “We were really risking a lot. Once begun, the walk couldn’t be stopped without making him a laughingstock,” he writes. For starters, the logistics would demand strict attention to detail.

For example, one car must trail the candidate with a sign advising oncoming traffic of the happening. (“Bill Cohen Ahead. Honk and Wave.”) Another vehicle must precede the candidate with a similar sign to alert approaching motorists and innocent bystanders.

“Without this kind of identification you don’t have a candidate,” Potholm suggests. “You simply have a random person or bindle stiff walking along a road…”

No bindle stiff, Bill Cohen, as the republic would soon learn. Potholm discloses some interesting behind-the-scenes aspects of the undertaking, and lists nine reasons why the Bangor native won that 1972 election. Heading the list is The Walk. It was, he claims, “The single most important aspect of Cohen’s successful campaign, except for the candidate himself.”

Other politicians subsequently tried versions of The Walk, with varying degrees of success. Perhaps more will in the future. But Cohen’s marathon career-launching performance three decades ago remains the benchmark by which they will be judged.

NEWS columnist Kent Ward lives in Winterport. His e-mail address is olddawg@bangordailynews.net.