Baldacci to attend Obama conference

AUGUSTA – Gov. John Baldacci plans to join other Democratic governors in Chicago next week for a session with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Baldacci said Friday he knew of no agenda for next week’s gathering but expected that meetings would involve organizational details heading into this summer’s Democratic National Convention in Denver and the general election in the fall.

“We’re all going to get on the same page,” Baldacci said.

The second-term Maine governor had signed on in support of Hillary Clinton’s bid for the Democratic nomination in December but endorsed Obama last Saturday after Clinton ended her campaign.

“Now it is time for all of us to work together to put Barack Obama in the White House,” he said in last week’s statement.

On Friday, Baldacci said Obama had told him he was looking forward to campaigning in Maine, where Obama won the state’s Democratic caucuses in February.

“He’s going to have to campaign in both parts of Maine … because both districts are vitally important,” Baldacci said.

Maine is one of two states that can split its electoral votes. To ensure taking all four electoral votes from Maine, a presidential candidate must carry both the 1st Congressional District, which includes populous York County adjacent to New Hampshire along with the state’s largest city of Portland, and the 2nd Congressional District, which includes Lewiston, Baldacci’s hometown of Bangor and the northernmost reaches of Aroostook County.

“It could be a close election and every vote counts, every electoral vote counts,” Baldacci said.

In 2004, when President Bush was not challenged for renomination, eventual Democratic nominee John Kerry won his party’s caucuses in Maine and took Maine in the fall.

Eight years ago, which was the last time there was competition for both major party nominations, Maine became the only New England state whose Republicans lined up behind George W. Bush. Al Gore won the state’s 2000 Democratic primary and carried the state in the general election.

This year, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain finished second to Mitt Romney in the state’s February Republican caucuses.

McCain, who was endorsed early on by U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, is hoping to halt a Democratic string of presidential election victories in Maine that dates to 1992.

Through the 1980s, Maine went Republican in three presidential elections.

While the Obama campaign was said to be still mulling the shape of its Maine organization this week, Baldacci said he believed any lingering tensions with Clinton backers were easing.

“It just doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s happening,” Baldacci said.