ORONO – Carl Cooley, the little-known socialist candidate for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District seat, on Thursday painted himself as the contest’s only anti-war candidate and told voters to reject the two major political parties.

“The millions of anti-war Democrats have been effectively disenfranchised,” said Cooley, who bemoaned what he said were minimal differences on the war issue between the presidential candidates of the major parties, which he said were beholden to multimillion-dollar corporations.

“When 1 percent of the people control 40 percent of the wealth, and this 1 percent has control of both major parties, there cannot be true democracy,” he told the 30 or so people at the Memorial Union at the University of Maine.

Cooley, whose name will appear on the Nov. 2 ballot alongside Democrat Rep. Michael Michaud and Republican Brian Hamel, has run a low-key, low-budget campaign. He will appear on the ballot as a member of the Socialist Equality Party, a group that supports the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and the “nationalization,” or public ownership, of corporations worth more than $10 billion.

While those at the university forum were able to hear Cooley’s message, television viewers might have a tougher time finding the former sheep farmer, schoolteacher and autoworker who now lives in the Waldo County town of Jackson.

Of the three major debates scheduled for October, the 77-year-old Cooley has been invited to one – a Maine Public Broadcasting debate in Lewiston, the 2nd District’s largest city.

Organizers for a second debate at the University of Maine at Fort Kent said Thursday they plan on inviting Cooley but had not yet done so.

However, Mike Curry, the news director of WCSH-TV Channel 6 said the NBC affiliate did not plan on inviting Cooley to its debate, scheduled to be held in Bangor.

“We want to give the two major candidates plenty of opportunity to address the voters,” Curry said Thursday.

Officials with both the Michaud and Hamel campaigns said they would welcome Cooley’s appearance at all the debates.

For his part, Cooley called his exclusion from the WCSH debate “anti-democratic.”

“I might just have to invite myself,” he said.

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