LEWISTON – Bates College student Mara Fleischer went to the Democratic caucus Sunday hoping to learn more about presidential candidate Howard Dean.

“I actually like his wife a lot more than Dean himself,” she said. “She’s employed and wants to stay that way.”

Dean, running nearly an hour late for his appearance at the Lewiston High School cafeteria, wasn’t able to persuade Fleischer to back him with his truncated stump speech.

Later, as she headed off to a classroom with other residents from her city precinct, Fleischer said she planned to vote for front-runner U.S. Sen. John Kerry.

Kerry, who skipped Maine’s caucuses for more delegate-rich states coming up Tuesday, sent surrogate U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan, D-Mass. to shore up support. Fleischer said she liked what she heard.

More than 250 registered Democrats turned out for the two-hour event where delegates were picked for the state convention next spring.

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, was the only other candidate to show up at the larger of Maine’s roughly 400 caucuses, including Lewiston and Auburn.

Therese Picard, 84, came as a Kucinich supporter. She stuck by her candidate.

“He believes in what I believe in,” she said. “He’s against the war. The first thing he’ll do is bring the troops back home… I’m in the peace movement and have been for over 25 years.”

Dean and Kerry were expected to do well in Maine, a neighboring state for both. But Kucinich had spent more time here, visiting five times, including a rally last month at Bates, where Picard first heard him speak.

Dean, Kerry and Kucinich staffed the event with volunteers who plastered school walls and columns with placards and passed out lapel stickers. As their candidates took the lectern, they switched the oversized political signs that served as a backdrop.

Voters who arrived at the caucus with open minds sported political memorabilia from several campaigns.

As he exited the caucus Sunday, Dean told the Sun Journal “I’d like to win Maine. It would be a great opportunity for me.”

Asked whether or not he had to win in Maine to stay in the race, he said, “You’ve got to get as many delegates as possible. That’s what we’re trying to do.”

At the Auburn Middle School, hundreds of caucus-goers packed the cafeteria. Two years ago, the last time the party faithful met, only about 20 people showed up, said Maine Sen. Neria Douglass, D-Auburn.

That is the chief reason the Maine Democratic Party changed back to presidential caucuses this year after trying out primaries the last two presidential election cycles, officials said.

Lewiston Democrat Brian O’Malley said he preferred the primary, where “it would have been a lot easier if we could have gone out and voted for John Kerry and gone back home.”

At his table were son Conor, 7, and daughter Shannon, 4, who colored with crayons and munched popcorn.

Although he was leaning toward Kerry, O’Malley, like most of the Democrats at the caucuses, said he would be willing to back any candidate who could defeat President Bush in November.

“That’s pretty much the common theme.”

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