BANGOR – The head of Maine’s Democratic Party on Thursday called on the state’s two Republican senators to “retract” their support of John Ashcroft’s nomination for attorney general.

Gwethalyn M. Phillips traveled from one end of Maine to the other to voice the concerns of a large segment of her constituency, she said.

She held a press conference in Portland in the morning.

Later in the day in Bangor, labor representatives and a local NAACP leader joined Phillips to sound the alarm against the Ashcroft nomination.

Phillips called Ashcroft’s positions on key issues from civil rights to a woman’s right to choose an abortion too extreme and not fitting the moderate stance usually adopted by legal leaders assuming positions such as that of attorney general.

Braving freezing afternoon temperatures, Phillips stood before a microphone in front of the Margaret Chase Smith Federal Building.

She was flanked by Ned McCann, secretary-treasurer of the Maine AFL-CIO, and James Varner, president of the Greater Bangor Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Jim Hanson of the Maine Bureau of Labor Education stood with the group as a show of support although he made no remarks. Aside from the media, the gathering drew curious glances from passers-by, but the frigid temperature prevented them from standing around long.

Phillips said she believed Ashcroft to be a “principled man, and I believe the principles to which he subscribes to be extreme. Whether we are talking about civil rights, a woman’s right to self-determination or gun safety, John Ashcroft is far to the right of mainstream Americans,” she said in a prepared speech.

In contrast, outgoing Attorney General Janet Reno was “outstanding” in the job in terms of adopting a moderate stance, Phillips said later in response to a reporter’s question.

McCann said it may be difficult for U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to go against a fellow Republican and former Senate colleague, but he urged them to reject Ashcroft as attorney general.

“He [Ashcroft] has shown indifference and hostility to fundamental human rights and is unfit,” for the attorney general post, McCann said.

McCann reminded Bangor area residents that the area’s most famous historical figure, Joshua Chamberlain, fought in the Civil War and “did not defend this country” in order for a “Confederate supporter” to be put in such a powerful leadership position.

On the heels of a holiday to celebrate the life and works of Martin Luther King Jr., the prospect of John Ashcroft as attorney general “is not part of the American dream” said Varner. Ashcroft is “insensitive to women’s rights, insensitive to workers’ rights and insensitive to civil rights,” Varner proclaimed.

Using a well-known fable to make his point, Varner said confirming Ashcroft as attorney general would be as though “African-Americans and women are the chickens and Ashcroft is the fox and you’re giving him the key to the henhouse.”

Responding to the comments, spokespeople for Snowe and Collins said it was appropriate such questions should be asked but reminded those concerned about Ashcroft that a president has the right to choose the Cabinet members he wants as long as they are qualified to hold the position.

Although Snowe and Collins disagree with Ashcroft on his anti-abortion stance, they both have discussed the matter with him and take him at his word that he will support and defend a woman’s right to choose because it is the law, according to the senators’ spokespeople.

David Lackey, a spokesman in Snowe’s Washington, D.C., office, said the senator has received a lot of letters and comments, both positive and negative, from Maine people on Ashcroft’s nomination.

Snowe has known Ashcroft for years, when she was a member of the House of Representatives and later as a senator. She and her husband, former Maine Gov. John R. McKernan, knew him when Ashcroft was a governor. “She has known him to be a man of the highest integrity during his years of public service,” Lackey said.

For all the hoopla, “nobody can say John Ashcroft isn’t qualified. He is a former senator. He has a law degree. He’s been a governor,” said Felicia Knight, spokeswoman for Sen. Collins.

“You can’t say a person isn’t qualified just because you disagree with him,” Knight said.