Ex-GOP analyst raises controversy as Baldacci staffer

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AUGUSTA – Four years before hiring on as Gov. John E. Baldacci’s new senior campaign strategist, Christian Potholm was one of the incumbent Democrat’s most implacable foes.

The Bowdoin College political scientist and longtime GOP pollster said Friday he had experienced a significant change of heart concerning Baldacci since offering the following advice to former Republican gubernatorial candidate Peter Cianchette on July 9, 2002:

“The total [Cianchette] campaign should continue to take the position – and really use it every single time – that John is a very nice guy, but he’s not a leader,” Potholm wrote in the memo obtained by the Bangor Daily News. “This is a soft negative and one which the other candidates will echo. It has the additional advantage of being true. John is a terrific guy and a lousy leader. He would be a prisoner of others were he to get to the Blaine House.”

At the time, Potholm was working for Cianchette, a former state legislator and South Portland businessman whose Pittsfield-based family construction business was better known than he was. He finished second to Baldacci in 2002 and announced he would run again for the office this year only to withdraw abruptly in a move that stunned many Maine Republicans.

Although Potholm was quick to emphasize Friday he has never “given false information or false interpretations of other people,” he said he had to admit to himself that he had misread Baldacci.

“I have no problem saying what I wrote, when I wrote it – I thought it was right,” Potholm said Friday. “I also have no problem saying [Baldacci] showed me courage three different times.”

Despite his initial negative views of Baldacci, Potholm – who like many Maine moderate Republicans tends to be conservative on fiscal issues and quite liberal on social issues – changed his perception of the governor about 18 months ago after both found themselves on the same side of three key issues. Potholm was working to defeat the proposed tribal casino, the Palesky tax cap and the ban on bear trapping. All of the initiatives were defeated, according to Potholm, because Baldacci assumed a courageous stand.

“I went to him over a year ago and told him because of what he had done for me, I wouldn’t run somebody against him,” Potholm said. “[The governor] showed tremendous political courage and stood up against the labor unions and the base of his own party and came out against the casino when it was 2-to-1 in favor of it. That was a leader.”

On the tax cap, Potholm said Democratic leaders were pressing Baldacci to hold the vote in a special June election to prevent the question from appearing on the November ballot and forcing many anti-tax cap Democratic candidates to run against the issue.

“He went back to leadership and said we’re doing it in November,” Potholm said.

Potholm said that, like the tax cap, early polling also favored the bear trapping ban, but Baldacci followed his best instincts and the advice of wildlife biologists.

“Democrats wanted him to be in favor of the ban, but he said, ‘I don’t care about politics; we have to follow the science,'” Potholm said.

Reactions to the professor’s earlier memo on Maine’s chief executive did not produce any particularly hair-raising responses from Democrats or Republicans. Jesse Connolly, Baldacci’s campaign manager, dismissed Potholm’s remarks as something one would expect to hear in the heat of a campaign from one side or the other.

“It’s four years old, and it’s in the past,” said Connolly. “We’re excited to have Chris on our team and we’re moving forward with the campaign. Chris was on the opposite side of the aisle four years ago with his candidate, and it’s no surprise that memos were issued. We’re excited he’s on our team to plan the governor’s re-election campaign.”

Dan Billings, a Republican lawyer and supporter of Republican gubernatorial candidate Chandler Woodcock, said Democrats “should have known what they were getting” when they decided to bring Potholm into the campaign.

“There’s no surprises here,” Billings said. “I’ve always looked at Potholm as a hired gun whose opinions were for sale, so it doesn’t surprise me – but then, I harbor a jaundiced view on this subject.”

Even Patrick Murphy, a loyal Democrat who runs the Portland-based Strategic Marketing Services which competes with The Potholm Group public opinion survey firm in Harpswell, defended Potholm’s right to cross party lines at will.

“He’s entitled to do that,” said Murphy. “He wouldn’t be the first political operative or commentator who didn’t like a particular candidate because of his point of view. Chris is obviously uncomfortable with Chandler Woodcock.”

GOP moderates look for a candidate

Republican conservatives have a name for GOP voters who favor gay rights, the preservation of existing abortion laws and keeping religious ideology in church instead of the classroom. They call them RINOS: Republicans in name only. Republicans who subscribe to those same principles prefer to call themselves moderates.

If Potholm has his way, moderates this year will be calling themselves Democrats when it comes to making a choice for governor. Murphy said it was not a coincidence that the Baldacci campaign had turned to Potholm in an attempt to capture that segment of Republicans who may be disillusioned with Woodcock’s positions on abortion, gay rights and biblical teachings in the schools.

“[Baldacci’s] got to pick who he wants to pick, and Chris is certainly a very strong guy in this field,” Murphy said. “I wish Chris well. I suppose if I were Governor Baldacci, I’d want him in my corner – rather than my opponent’s corner.”

Potholm wouldn’t be caught dead in Woodcock’s corner.

Last week, he submitted a guest column to the Brunswick Times Record and other newspapers laying out precisely how he felt about Woodcock whom he described in the piece as “an arch-conservative with a radical and out-of-the-mainstream agenda.” Potholm’s perceptions were formed largely because Woodcock’s candidacy is being championed by many members of the so-called religious right who share Woodcock’s view that:

. Abortion should be illegal except in limited extreme circumstances.

. Sexual orientation is not a protected civil right.

. The biblical explanation for the creation of humans and the world should be taught alongside the evolution theory.

Although Potholm described himself as a lifelong Republican within the context of the column, he created controversy this week when he did not identify himself as a Baldacci supporter, much less an employee of the Baldacci campaign – a position he has held since June 27. That information became known Tuesday when state election candidates’ campaign finance reports were filed with the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices. Potholm had received an initial payment of $7,000 from Baldacci.

In Thursday’s Portland Press Herald, Potholm announced he had apologized to the Brunswick Times Record for failing to disclose he was on the Baldacci payroll.

“It is not my nature to apologize, but my wife said, ‘I live in this town; let me give you some political advice: Apologize to the paper,'” Potholm said Friday. “I said, ‘It’s going to kill me, but I’ll do it.'”

Although he supported Potholm’s decision to work for Baldacci, Murphy did not share the professor’s view on disclosure.

“On that particular issue, he should have put down the fact that he was working for the governor, and I would hope I would if I were in the same situation,” Murphy said.

Apologies were too little too late for Republicans.

“People are very upset when he’s trying to portray himself as a disenchanted moderate Republican and then it turns out that he’s on the governor’s payroll,” Billings said. “His stock with Republicans couldn’t be much lower.”

Democrats at the Baldacci camp dodged the question.

“It’s always important for disclosure to happen,” Connolly said. “But I’ll leave it to Chris to decide whether he made the right choice on that one.”

In defense of Potholm

The defining line between deception and misperception is more apt to pivot on what is assumed rather than what is stated. Potholm said Friday no one should ever have assumed that, simply because he was a registered Republican in Harpswell and had worked on Cianchette’s campaign and those of other Republicans in the past, he would never consider working for a Democrat. He has, in fact, worked for Democrats and independents, including Gov. Angus S. King.

Because he has championed moderate Republicans such as Sen. William Cohen and because he is a published political scientist, Potholm said people in general and news reporters in particular frequently credit him for being a Republican strategist. Potholm believes he has been unfairly judged in this latest disclosure incident because some people have immediately jumped to the conclusion that he made his remarks as a hired advocate for Baldacci.

Instead, Potholm said, he signed up with Baldacci because he recognized the Democrat as the best hope for defeating what he perceived as an intolerant conservative guided by religious beliefs rather than civic principles. To Potholm, Woodcock is the embodiment of exactly what the Maine Republican Party should never become.

“We have somebody here who represents a wing of the Republican Party that I have fought against since I was little,” Potholm said. “I have fought against it in my own church and I have fought against it educationally. I have only one point: I can’t support Chandler Woodcock. … Baldacci is just the instrument by which I am trying to keep these people from taking over.”

As passionate as Potholm is on the importance of moderate Republican principles, he becomes a little more cavalier when it comes to the question of whose responsibility it was to raise the issue of disclosure. From the professor’s point of view, newspaper editors who viewed his column at least should have asked him if he was working for anyone running for office.

Since no one asked, he didn’t offer and rationalized his initial decision not to disclose his position on the campaign on the basis that his reputation as a political scientist more or less eclipsed that role.

“I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” Potholm said. “Candidates come and go, causes come and go, but a professor who has written four books on politics knows more than the day-to-day stuff. A candidate is not as important as the history of Maine. I guess that’s the way I should have put it. My knowledge of the history of Maine is significantly larger than a lot of people who think they know a lot about Maine.”

Ultimately, the public will make the conclusion on whether Potholm was just doing business as usual or sinking lower while straddling an ethical fence. The professor says there’s no lack of optional endings to his story.

“Some Republicans have called me to say I’m doing the right thing and that they wished they had the courage to stand up and say they were going to vote for Baldacci,” he said. “Others support the Woodcock agenda and think I’m a traitor or I’m this or I’m that. One called me a prostitute, a pimp and whore. I just don’t think I could be all three of those at the same time.”