Strong on defense Charlie Summers, Republican 1st Congressional District

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Standing next to former President George H.W. Bush at Walker’s Point earlier this month, Charlie Summers looked like a seasoned politician being ushered into the inner circle of Republican leaders.

Tall, blond and handsome, Summers, 44, was on hand at the Bush summer home to receive the former president’s endorsement in the 1st Congressional District race. Summers is seeking to unseat Democrat Tom Allen, who has held the post since 1996.

“He’s a good candidate, he’s a good man,” said the former president, offering a rare public endorsement of a candidate in the district where his family has summered for about a century. “I like what he says about defense issues and tax issues.”

Summers hopes Bush’s vote of confidence is helping him turn the tide in an uphill battle, which a mid-September poll showed him losing by more than 30 percentage points to Allen.

His campaign has been defined by sharp criticisms of the incumbent, particularly on the choice Allen made to leave the Armed Services Committee. Summers pledges, if elected, to serve on the committee for the duration of his tenure, a tradition among 1st District representatives, he said, that stretches back 40 years.

Summers said that Duncan Hunter, the House chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has “agreed to put my name forward” for membership on the panel if Summers is elected.

With businesses such as Bath Iron Works, Saco Defense and the bases in Brunswick and Kittery in the district, a voice on the Armed Services Committee is key, he said.

“There’s a reason Bill Cohen stayed on the Armed Services Committee for 18 years,” Summers said. With Sen. Susan Collins on the Senate Armed Services now and no Maine representative from the House, “it’s like the sound of one hand clapping.”

Though he was a state senator for only four years in the early 90s, Summers comes across as a polished and seasoned political veteran.

Born in Danville, Ill., and raised in Kewanee, Ill., Summers came to Maine in 1982 when his wife, Deborah, took a job at the University of Maine in Orono. Tragically, she died in a car crash eight years ago when their children, Chas and Tricia, were only 8 and 12, respectively. Summers has since remarried and he and his wife, Ruth, and the children now live in Scarborough.

Over the years, Summers has managed motels in the Bangor area and in southern Maine, opened a convenience store in Biddeford, and earned a real estate license.

But his political career began less than 15 years ago, when he joined the Scarborough Republican Committee. At the age of 30, he ran for state senator and won in the Scarborough-area district that had not elected a Republican in decades. Knocking on some 5,000 doors, he believes, was the key to his 612-vote victory.

Summers won re-election in 1992, then in 1994 ran in the Republican primary for the 1st Congressional District nomination, coming in second in a four-candidate race to James Longley Jr.

For the next nine years, Summers worked for Republican U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, running her six offices in Maine. It was working for Snowe, perhaps more than holding elected office earlier, that shaped Summers’ political values.

“She’s never forgotten where she’s come from,” he said of Snowe. “I couldn’t have had a better mentor.”

Constituent service is the second point on which Summers has aimed his criticism of Allen. Rather than have one office in Portland as Allen does, Summers would open offices in Augusta, Rockland and York County as well as Portland, making it easier for people in need of help to seek it.

“The issues for people in Portland are different from those who live in Union or Parsonsfield,” he said. When he worked for Snowe, Summers said the senator’s Augusta office averaged 800 constituent cases a year.

Having one office “was a very poor decision on his part,” he said of Allen.

Summers supported the invasion of Iraq as part of the war against terrorism and believes it was in the best interest of the United States, as well as a morally correct move.

“It’s about standing up for your principles and for your humanity,” said Summers, who, along with his wife, is in the Navy reserves. In August, he interrupted his campaigning to do a two-week stint in the Navy’s public affairs office in Bahrain.

Summers supports President Bush’s tax cuts and wants to make them permanent. “I believe in tax cuts for everyone,” he said. “I think it’s the right thing to do.”

The federal deficit must be addressed, Summers said, through spending restraint, except when it comes to national defense.

“If it means we charge it, we charge it,” he said, advocating deficit spending on the military and on intelligence.

Yet for his differences with Allen, Summers is like the incumbent in his belief that government can help people. He opposes Bush’s decision to relax some environmental standards.

“Maine has got to go before party politics,” he said, citing a long history of Maine representatives who have bucked their party on certain issues. “That’s what people expect – to put Maine first.”

Summers on the issues:

Iraq War-terrorism: Supported invasion and continued efforts to form a democratic government.

Economy-taxes: Wants to make Bush tax cuts permanent, wants to cut federal spending except on military.

Health care: Supports medical savings accounts, making health insurance premiums deductible on income tax.

Gay marriage: Believes marriage is between man and woman, but supports civil unions: ?I would defer to the states.?