BANGOR – Abortion rights, education and fair wages emerged as the top concerns among a group of Maine women voters, who quizzed presidential and congressional campaign officials at a forum Tuesday.

The morning session, sponsored by the nonpartisan Maine Women’s Policy Center, featured representatives from the President Bush and John Kerry campaigns, Green Independent Party vice presidential candidate Pat LaMarche and 2nd Congressional District contenders Democrat Mike Michaud and Republican Brian Hamel.

There were several points of contention at the event, at which LaMarche and Kerry spokeswoman Dottie Melanson sparred with Bush spokeswoman Sen. Betty Lou Mitchell over raising the minimum wage.

Melanson said Democrat Kerry supports raising the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7 an hour by 2007. The issue is seen as being of particular importance to working women, 4.5 million of whom would benefit from the increase, according to a recent study.

Mitchell, the regional chairwoman of Bush’s “W Stands for Women” campaign, said the Bush administration wanted to support educational initiatives for women so they didn’t have to “settle for minimum wage.”

She said raising the wage was a “two-edged sword.”

“We have to be very careful because of small businesses,” Mitchell said. “We gain more by having a wage that business can afford.”

“It’s not small businesses,” LaMarche shot back, contending that major companies, such as Wal-Mart, were far more likely than small businesses to pay their workers minimum wages.

Abortion rights were foremost on the mind of 21-year-old Rachel Warner, a University of Maine student who attended the forum.

Warner said she has gone back and forth about supporting LaMarche and her Green Independent Party presidential candidate, David Cobb. But this year, she said, Kerry would get her vote.

“There’s too much at stake,” she said.

Women are more likely to vote Democratic, and judging by the applause lines and post-forum interviews, so were many in attendance.

With two weeks to go before voters choose their next president, the candidates have stepped up their efforts to woo women voters, whom polls show make up about 60 percent of undecided voters.

In the recent presidential debates, as well as Tuesday’s forum, Kerry and his surrogates have stressed the Democrat’s support for Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision ensuring a woman’s right to choose to terminate her pregnancy.

For his part, Bush has said he would have no litmus test for U.S. Supreme Court nominees, including whether they support abortion rights.

Education has always ranked high among women’s issues, and Mitchell touted Bush’s No Child Left Behind initiative, modeled on a program in Bush’s home state of Texas, as a step forward.

LaMarche said the program was flawed, citing Texas’ dismal educational system, which features one of the nation’s highest dropout rates.

“We have to work very hard so that the U.S. does not follow Texas in these crucial areas,” LaMarche said.

Melanson echoed Kerry’s promise to reform and fully fund the mandate, which ties federal funding to new standards for teachers and students.

Congressional hopefuls Michaud and Hamel sparred over some of the same issues, but also addressed the war in Iraq and terrorism, the latter of which polls show is of increasing concern to women voters.

Michaud said Bush demonstrated a “lack of leadership” in his handling of the war, citing a recent case of soldiers refusing a mission because they didn’t have adequate equipment. Hamel faulted Michaud for voting against an $87 billion supplemental budget for the war, saying he was making a political statement at the expense of the troops.