Leaders fish for votes GOP governors push Bush cause

AUGUSTA – With the looming presidential election expected to turn on a handful of electoral votes, governors from within and beyond Maine’s borders are pulling out the stops to secure votes for both major parties.

Former independent Gov. Angus S. King has already endorsed Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John F. Kerry, and Gov. John E. Baldacci has taped a plea on behalf of Democratic candidates that is being used to reach unenrolled voters by phone this week.

Meanwhile, three sitting Republican governors are scheduled to be in Westbrook today as part of a Republican National Committee effort to persuade undecided voters to cast ballots for President Bush.

The candidates, or their surrogates, have made an increasing number of forays into Maine in recent weeks, particularly in the state’s northern district where some pollsters have predicted the president could claim one of the state’s four electoral votes. Maine is one of two states that can split its electoral votes between two candidates.

Baldacci spokesman Lee Umphrey said the governor’s pitch to unenrolled voters to cast their ballots for all Democratic candidates was recorded last week in Bangor and paid for by the Democratic Party’s coordinated campaign. Baldacci said it was part of his responsibility to get out the vote for his party’s candidates.

“I’m governor of the state of Maine and all the people and as a Democratic governor, I’m supporting John Kerry and the Democrats running for the Legislature,” he said. “I do anything I can do to be helpful and one of those things was a voice message supporting Democratic candidates, asking voters to register to vote and to take advantage of absentee ballots.”

At least one recipient was peeved to pick up his phone and hear the governor making a political sales pitch. John McKean, a Camden voter not enrolled in a party, said the governor had wasted his time. He said Baldacci’s politicking diminished his respect for the governor’s office which he said should be dedicated to more important matters.

“I was a little irritated by it,” McKean said.

Dwayne Bickford, executive director of the Maine Republican Party, said the governor’s advocacy for Democratic candidates was not unexpected.

“I guess the real question is how much influence it’s going to have,” Bickford.

Democrats were making similar observations over today’s RNC event in Westbrook where Govs. Linda Lingle of Hawaii, Bob Taft of Ohio and Donald L. Carcieri of Rhode Island will meet with reporters at a local machinery shop as part of a campaign tour for President Bush. The two-day effort, which winds down today, was sponsored by the RNC’s “Victory 2004 Leadership Matters” tour and included 20 Republican governors who took their party’s message across the country. The governors, who traveled in seven teams, tried to rally support for the president by highlighting that leadership matters when choosing the chief executive.

Jesse Derris, a spokesman for Kerry’s campaign in Maine, predicted Thursday that if the GOP governors were going to try and support the president’s “outsourcing of jobs,” they wouldn’t be welcomed in the state.

“Certainly, Gov. Taft should be spending a little more time in Ohio where they’ve lost over 200,000 jobs,” Derris said. “I understand why they’re coming to Maine because it is an important state. But what they’re trying to defend is a record of failure, and it’s time for new leadership.”