It’s 5 o’clock at Lewiston Central Fire Station on a hot June evening. A half-dozen firefighters have gathered in the kitchen to watch the news and decide on supper.

On a corner TV, “Who wants to be a millionaire?” has gone to credits. The station cuts to an ad extolling the virtues of presidential candidate John Kerry.

Most of the voters here are not paying attention.

“I don’t listen to them anymore,” Mike Albert says of the ads.

“I’d much rather watch an AFLAC commercial,” the annoying one with the talking goose, says Fire Capt. Victor Gaudreau as he studies takeout menus. “I think that’s what’s happening. It really doesn’t catch our interest at this stage of the game.”

But not everyone is ready to dismiss the effort as wasted money and airtime.

“I think it’s useful,” says Wallace Veilleux. “They plant the seed. Who doesn’t think Kerry’s wishy-washy now?” he asks, referring to the Bush campaign’s recent attack ads.

Since they started blitzing Maine’s airwaves in March, the ads have changed Veilleux’s views of the candidates, he says.

That is just the effect the campaigns are hoping for. And, more than ever before in Maine, they’re working for that effect earlier in the season, with more money, specifically targeting Maine voters.

Together, the two camps have pumped close to $3 million into TV advertising in the state with more than five months still to go before the election. And more than a month to go before the parties even formally choose Bush and Kerry to top their tickets.

In addition, the campaigns have organized in Maine sooner than in past election years; both campaigns have staffed the state months before they normally would.

Why?

Maine may be at the distant corner of the United States geographically. But this year the state, along with about a dozen others, resides close to the center of the political universe. Maine has been designated a so-called “battleground” state, meaning the campaigns believe the state’s four electoral votes could make or break the election in November.

The closeness of the vote in the Bush-Gore race nationally and in Maine, as well as Maine’s independent streak, have combined this year to give the state its heightened political allure.

Four years ago, in one of the tightest elections of the century, Bush captured 271 electoral votes, one more than the minimum 270 needed to clinch the presidency. Mainers gave the edge to Al Gore in 2000, but Bush trailed by only 5.1 percent. Neither candidate captured a majority of the vote.

Both campaigns are bracing for a possible repeat of the 2000 race, when the U.S. Supreme Court ended up deciding which candidate would get Florida’s decisive electoral votes.

“That reminds us how every single vote counts, every single elector,” said Kevin Madden, regional spokesman for the Bush campaign. “Maine has become a very important part of our campaign blueprint in the” 2004 campaign.

Maine’s rare distinction as one of two states that awards half of its electoral votes to congressional district winners may account for the Bush campaign siting its only office to date in Bangor, in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, where Gore won by less than 2 percent. A Bush win in that district would enable him to pick up one of the state’s precious electors. For that reason, Lewiston and Auburn, also in the 2nd District, should expect extra attention this year.

Maine “got a moderate amount of attention in 2000,” said Oliver Woshinsky, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Southern Maine. “But I don’t think it was anywhere near what it’s going to see this year.”

What will it mean?

For Mainers, who usually are lucky to catch a glimpse of a candidate en route to or returning from New Hampshire, this year’s distinction as a “battleground” state promises more of everything.

More ads, more calls, more appearances

Jesse Derris, campaign spokesman for Kerry in Maine, said voters in this state “can expect to be the focus of a tremendous amount of TV advertising.”

Mainers and voters in other “battleground” states also can expect to see an unprecedented number of campaign rallies as well as phone solicitations and direct-mail advertising from the candidates and their surrogates, observers said.

And there will be more face time. “I think they’re going to see a lot of presidential travel,” Madden said.

Already Bush’s national campaign chairman has visited this state three times this year; his chief of staff, vice president and several cabinet secretaries have made recent campaign appearances in Maine.

The candidate himself came for an April visit, not to his family compound in Kennebunkport, but to stage an Earth Day press conference at an estuary in Wells.

The Bush campaign has had five full-time staffers on board since March, and just opened a second office.

Compare that to 2000, when, by October, a month before the general election, Bush had three staffers, and the campaign had only begun advertising in the late summer or early fall.

That was the same general timeline for the Gore presidential campaign, said Chris Harris, spokesman for the Maine Democratic Party.

As for Kerry, his campaign said he is taking no state for granted, especially one where a Democratic victory was as close as Maine’s.

“It’s earlier than ever, more than ever and bigger than ever,” said spokeswoman Kathy Roeper, referring to the Kerry campaign in Maine.

The Kerry campaign has had a full-time communications director in the state for weeks and put a campaign manager on the payroll in June.

Both campaigns launched TV ads back in March and have kept up a steady barrage. Kerry has spent about $1.2 million in Maine to date; Bush even more.

Most TV advertising for the candidates nationally has been aimed at the battleground states. With Maine airtime cheaper than in most other battleground states, the campaigns get a bigger bang for their buck and can afford bigger ad buys here, political observers said.

In the southern and central Maine market alone, the campaigns have pumped into three major network affiliates nearly $1.5 million so far, flooding the airwaves with more than 1,000 spots.

“It has been earlier and heavier already this year,” said Steve Thaxton, president and general manager at WCSH-TV Channel 6 in Portland, an NBC affiliate.

Ad buys are expected to escalate over the coming months and hit heaviest in the months leading up to the election, both campaigns said.

More proof of Maine’s importance: Some ads are being customized for Maine viewers, unlike in previous campaigns.

The Bush campaign launched – in April – an ad critical of Kerry’s Senate voting record on weapons systems whose contracts could have gone to Bath Iron Works. Tailored for Maine voters, that type of ad is likely to appear in the future, Madden said.

Third-party advertising for the candidates is more visible and earlier as well.

The Media Fund has targeted Bush on a variety of issues, including health care and jobs. The group already has poured nearly $400,000 into TV ads in southern and central Maine alone.

Maine pundits: Kerry will win

Maine is frequently named by political observers as one of about a dozen “top tier” pivotal states where the vote in 2000 was closest. Maine actually was 13th closest. Other political handicappers have extended the number of key states to 18 or 19 that could go either way this year.

“Maine has always been a competitive state” due to its independent streak, with the four members of its congressional delegation evenly split between the two major parties, he said. Until last year, Maine was headed by an independent governor. In 1992, Independent Ross Perot beat out the GOP’s George Herbert Walker Bush.

Support for both Bush and Gore in 2000 was soft leading up to Election Day, Woshinsky said, meaning voters were not particularly enthusiastic about their respective candidates. This year, by contrast, the Bush presidency “has polarized people,” he said. “A lot of people think he’s doing a wonderful job and a lot of people think he’s about as bad as you can get.” The closer the race, the more “riled up” people get,” Woshinsky said.

While the premise held by the national campaigns is that each of the battleground states is winnable, not everybody expects Maine’s vote to be close this time.

Christian Potholm, Bowdoin College government professor and author of several books on Maine elections, said this state will be Kerry’s to lose.

“I do not believe he will lose it,” said Potholm, a Republican activist and pollster. “Maine is not Bush territory. It wasn’t for the father. It isn’t for the son. And it will not be this time around. I don’t quite understand all the excitement and fuss.”

For that reason, Potholm said Maine could be regarded as a bellwether state.

“If Kerry loses Maine, he’s going to be losing big all across the country,” he said.

Similarly, Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said history is not likely to repeat itself.

“We all act as though 2004 is another 2000, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the November result be decisive. The last time America had two or more very close elections for president in a row was in the 1880s (1880, 1884 and 1888).”

Despite Bush’s family ties to the state, Sabato said, Kerry has the edge.

A recent poll conducted between April 23 and May 20 by a Portland firm easily put Kerry ahead 49-39 percent.

“Maine leans clearly Democratic in presidential years these days, and especially with a Democratic nominee from the Northeast, the likelihood that a Texan, even an incumbent, could snatch this prize away from a competitive candidate from the Bay State seems slight,” Sabato said.

So, does it all matter? Will Maine voters be influenced by all the early, heavy campaigning by the presidential candidates?

Amy Fried, an associate professor of political science at the University of Maine, said it might seem like too much, too early. But one way to make a lasting impression is through constancy. That takes money, and both campaigns have it.

So even though the words and images appear to be going unnoticed by most for now – Lewiston firefighter Veilleux notwithstanding – they likely will be remembered when November rolls around, Fried said.

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