Mills, Bennett eye GOP run for governor

AUGUSTA – State Sen. Peter Mills told Republican legislative colleagues Friday he may announce a candidacy for governor next week.

The lawyer from Cornville did not say a bid for the GOP gubernatorial nomination was a certainty, but stopped just short.

“My present intention is to announce on Tuesday,” said Mills, who at times has been a swing vote in the Legislature and who earlier this year helped lead a people’s veto petition drive that prompted lawmakers to drop a controversial borrowing plan and rewrite the pending state budget.

On Friday, Mills also began to circulate what he called “a 12 step program toward accountable government,” offering analysis and recommending action in areas ranging from human services and education to taxes, public pensions and debt.

“Maine deserves a government as good as the one we pay for – not the best government money can buy but the best we can afford within our resources,” Mills’ “What Maine Must Do” declared.

“To succeed, we must confront our weaknesses with greater candor and exploit our strengths with greater insight. Because ours is a small polity without extreme partisan distinctions, we can be nimble; we can be quick; and we can leap over these candlesticks,” Mills’ statement said.

Former Senate President Richard Bennett of Oxford, meanwhile, said he too may enter the Republican race. He said he expects to make an announcement in a month or so.

Unlike former U.S. Rep. David Emery, who said Thursday he was scrapping consideration of a gubernatorial campaign because 2002 Republican nominee Peter Cianchette had decided to make another try for the Blaine House, Bennett said he felt that the “more candidates, the better.”

Added Bennett: “What’s motivating me to think about this is the real feeling that Maine needs a dialogue about our collective future. A gubernatorial election is a unique opportunity to do that.”

Bennett said he worried about the state’s future.

“It’s a different Maine than what we grew up in. People are anxious and we need to have a dialogue about our future,” Bennett said.

On Thursday, Cianchette said he would enter the race, saying “our state is on the wrong track.” On Friday, Cianchette visited the State House, meeting with Republican lawmakers.

The Democratic incumbent, John Baldacci, has said he will seek a second term.

Mills is serving his fifth term in the Senate, following one two-year stint in the House of Representatives. Bennett, who works in private business, previously served four terms in the state Senate and two terms in the House.

Maine’s last Republican governor was John McKernan, who won election to serve as chief executive in 1986 and 1990.

In June 2002, Cianchette, a former lawmaker from South Portland, defeated James Libby of Buxton, also a former legislator, for the Republican nomination for governor before finishing second to Baldacci in a four-way general election.

In 1998, the year of independent Angus King’s re-election, James Longley Jr. won a three-way GOP primary. Four years earlier, now-U.S. Sen. Susan Collins emerged as the victor of an eight-way Republican battle for the party nomination but ended up as an also-ran behind King in November.