PRESQUE ISLE – In the final days of the campaign the two candidates for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District put their best feet forward at a women- sponsored Breakfast of Champions event at the Northern Maine Community College on Tuesday morning.

The session was billed for all top office holders, but no spokeswoman for the Republican presidential ticket attended. Dorothy Melanson, chairwoman of the Maine Democratic Party, was the lone speaker for the office of a presidential candidate.

“[Democrat John] Kerry is a champion of women’s issues,” she told the group. “Women are seeing many of their programs now being cut, including pay equality and the shutting down of centers to protect them from abuse.”

The Breakfast of Champions event, one of three held in Maine, was sponsored by the Maine Women’s Policy Center and American Association of University Women. Other sessions were held earlier in Bangor and Portland.

Although not a debate, the session featured some back-and-forth from the two people seeking to represent northern Maine in Washington.

The incumbent, Democratic Rep. Michael Michaud, and his Republican challenger, Brian Hamel, answered a half-dozen questions about women’s issues after making brief opening statements. About 125 people, a mix of women and men, and some of them college students, attended.

“I understand women’s issues in the workplace, in schools,” Hamel said. “Maine is also in a unique circumstance when it comes to these issues because of our rural setting.

“Higher education is the key to economic success,” he said. “Maine needs appropriate funding for this.”

He said he would assist in the fight against out-migration of Maine youth. He spoke of his support for the No Child Left Behind program in schools, and for Title IX, a 1972 law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in sports or academics by a school or college that receives federal money.

Michaud noted that many on his staff in Washington and Maine are women, and they get the same pay as men for the same work.

“I am for equal pay for equal work, health care for women, affordable medication, and we must address the disparity of women’s rights,” he said. “There is a problem with Republican leadership in the House in Washington.

“I’ve supported housing programs, and I’ve opposed privatizing Social Security, which would be bad for women,” he continued in his opening statement. “I’m proud of my record on women’s issues.”

Both candidates said they support early childhood programs, reducing the debt load for people going on to higher education, parent notification for abortion, support for non-traditional students for higher education and equal pay for equal work.

On abortion rights, it was hard to differentiate. Michaud supported a ban on late-term abortions, but said he realized women want and need abortions for unwanted pregnancies.

Hamel said he would not seek to overturn the Supreme Court’s Roe vs. Wade decision, and abortion should be a decision for women to make.

On equal pay for equal work, Hamel said Americans have that right, and it should be so in the end. Michaud felt the same, and said the Department of Labor should enforce laws that are on the books.

“Unfortunately, it’s not that way,” he said.