PAC eyes Maine for beating Bush State one of 17 targeted for campaign

Despite having only four electoral votes to offer next year’s presidential hopefuls, Maine is drawing some national attention in a race even Republican campaign watchers are conceding could be close.

Maine is one of 17 battleground states targeted in a $75 million effort by a newly formed Democratic-leaning political action committee with designs on defeating President Bush in 2004.

“One thing we learned in 2000 is you can’t take any electoral votes for granted,” said Ellen Malcolm, president of the group America Coming Together, referring to the controversial Electoral College vote that put Bush in the White House.

Malcom said the group’s leadership had not yet determined how much of the $75 million would be destined for Maine.

Christian Potholm, a Bowdoin College political science professor and GOP pollster, predicted the impact of the group in Maine would be minimal at best, with most of the PAC’s money going to other states on the list, such as Michigan, with its 18 electoral votes, or Florida, with its 25.

“This is a case where someone has more money than brains,” Potholm said, referring to the group’s founder and longtime Democratic donor, multibillionaire George Soros, who has pledged $10 million to the effort.

Instead, Potholm predicted the president’s fate in Maine would rest with the Bush campaign’s willingness to advertise here – something it largely failed to do in 2000.

While advertising alone cannot secure a victory in any state, it can influence an election in places like Maine, where the state’s unpredictable independent voters far outnumber those enrolled in either political party.

“In a situation like this, they’re looking to get the most bang for their buck,” University of Maine political science professor Richard Powell said of Maine’s inclusion in the list.

But the group’s $75 million fund-raising goal, although substantial, is likely to be dwarfed by that of the president, whose re-election campaign expects to raise $170 million by November of next year.

The states targeted by ACT range from Arizona, where in the past 30 years, voters have chosen only one Democrat (Clinton in 1996), to Minnesota, where in the same period, there has been only one successful Republican candidate (Richard Nixon in 1972).

Although its scarce electoral votes limit its political power, Maine was once considered a bellwether for national elections, spawning the political axiom, “As Maine goes, so goes the nation.”

The state lost that distinction in 1936, when only Maine and Vermont chose Republican Alfred Landon over Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Democrat’s re-election bid, prompting the Democratic party chairman at the time to alter the saying to “As Maine goes, so goes Vermont.”

In recent elections, Maine has been kinder to Democrats than most of the states targeted by Soros’ group, and historically less kind to the Bush family, with both father and son losing the state in 1992 and 2000, respectively.

But Jim Tobin, chairman of Bush’s re-election campaign in New England, vowed Monday to counter any of ACT’s efforts in Maine with “one of the best grass-roots campaigns the state has seen.”

“We’re playing in Maine to win,” Tobin said.

Beyond the presidential election, ACT lists among its goals to “elect progressive officials at every level.”

Malcolm clarified Monday that America Coming Together had no plans to target specific congressional races in any of the 17 states, but to influence those votes by increasing Democratic turnout for the presidential election.