1 route, 2 nail-biters Dems’ race for U.S. Senate nominee too close to call

BANGOR – It was too soon to tell early Wednesday morning who will represent the Democrats in the party’s effort to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, with an Orono lawyer and a Dixmont farmer running neck and neck for the opportunity.

With 82 percent of precincts reporting, unofficial results showed Jean Hay Bright, a writer and organic farmer, with a narrow lead over civil rights lawyer Eric M. Mehnert. Hay Bright had received 19,566 votes to 19,096 for Mehnert, a difference of about 1 percent. Hay Bright was considered by some to be the better-known candidate, having run two – although unsuccessful – federal campaigns.

“We’re on pins and needles down here,” Hay Bright said Tuesday night from Bruno’s restaurant in Portland. “We’re just waiting it out. Tomorrow we go forward.”

The Mehnert camp offered a similar sentiment from its post at Woodman’s Bar and Grill in Orono.

“At this point, we’re cautiously optimistic,” spokeswoman Diane Russell said.

Jim Melcher, a political scientist at the University of Maine at Farmington, said Mehnert was performing well despite being relatively unknown, making the race difficult to call.

“It’s the kind of thing that might be settled with a recount,” Melcher said.

Mehnert and Hay Bright have squared off against each other at least a dozen times in small forums over recent months as part of their party’s effort to replace Snowe, who is seeking her third term.

Speaking by phone Tuesday, Bangor resident David Walsh said Hay Bright’s political experience and direct approach earned his vote over Mehnert, whom he described as less experienced and often evasive.

“We need more politicians like Jean in Washington,” said Walsh, who has known Hay Bright for many years.

“Olympia for too long has been getting a free ride” as a supposed moderate whose voting record proves her more aligned with conservative Republicans, Walsh said.

Hay Bright and Mehnert agree on that point as well as the need to end Republican rule in Washington. On the issue of the Iraq war, Hay Bright favors an immediate withdrawal of the entire U.S. presence, both military and industrial. Mehnert has called for the United Nations to intervene and for U.S. troops to return to their bases. He believes troops would then be sent home as soon as possible, but at the military’s discretion.

At the Bangor Civic Center early Tuesday evening, Hay Bright supporters were difficult to find. Republicans and Mehnert supporters appeared to make up the majority of voters between 4:30 and 6:30 p.m.

Bangor resident Clyde Tarr had planned to vote for Hay Bright as he walked up to the civic center, having identified with her organic farming experience after reading one of her books, he said. But that was before a Mehnert supporter got to him outside the polling station and appealed to his political sensibilities.

“He spoke to me, and I ended up changing my mind,” Tarr said after voting, still somewhat conflicted about his last-minute change of heart.

Democrat Carol Harriman was more confident of her vote, supporting Mehnert largely for his professional background as a civil rights lawyer, she said Tuesday at the civic center. She never misses a primary election and considers voting a truer form of loyalty to America than “revving up” to support the war effort, she said.

“I think the real patriotism is in the ballot box,” Harriman said.

Though he predicted Hay Bright as the eventual winner, Melcher said Snowe will prove a formidable opponent to either candidate in the race to represent Maine in the Senate.

“Whoever comes out of it is going to be an enormous underdog in the fall,” he said.