Green Party vice president candidate Pat LaMarche of Maine plans to spend tonight holding an all-night vigil outside Vice President Dick Cheney’s Washington, D.C., home.

The stop is part of her two-week nationwide “left-out tour” where LaMarche is sleeping in homeless or domestic violence shelters calling attention to poverty, the working poor, and the need for universal health care.

As one vice presidential candidate to another, LaMarche has invited Cheney to join her in the vigil. “But I’m not holding out much hope for that,” LaMarche said Friday as she caught a train in Rhode Island.

Originally the night outside Cheney’s home was supposed to replicate how the homeless live; LaMarche and followers were planning to sleep on the street. “But we were told we could stay in front of his house if we didn’t sleep, and as long as there was no more than 29 of us. Then they told us it couldn’t be more than 25. Now they’re telling us we can’t sit down.”

LaMarche said she’ll comply because she does not want to spend a night in jail that would take away from her tour. LaMarche is not campaigning for votes for herself; she’s campaigning that Bush must be defeated. “It’s like the country is the Titanic and Bush is the captain.” With Kerry as president, “some would get on lifeboats.” No president or vice president should serve in office if they have not spent a night on the streets or in a homeless shelter, LaMarche said.

Her tour began in Maine on Tuesday, and will take her to Boston, Providence, New York City, Washington, Colorado, California, Oregon, Chicago, Detroit and finally Cleveland, where her tour ends Oct. 4.

Father of Marine in Iraq has request of Bush

Ed Desgrosseilliers of Auburn, who was a delegate at the Democratic National Convention, got an e-mail Tuesday from the Bush-Cheney campaign asking him to host a debate-watch “party for the president.”

Desgrosseilliers said he’d be happy to, on one condition.

“One of the president’s daughter’s must be assigned to serve in Iraq beside my first-born son for the duration of his tour.” Todd Desgrosseilliers, a Marine, left for Iraq two weeks ago. If it’s not possible for one of the Bush daughters to serve with the Marines in Iraq, then Desgrosseilliers wants President Bush to “explain to my two grandsons and my daughter-in-law what he expects their daddy and her husband to do in Iraq since he pronounced the battle won more than a year ago.”

He identified himself in his e-mail response as Edward H. Desgrosseilliers, USN, Retired, U.S. citizen and Democrat.

“I haven’t heard back,” Desgrosseilliers said Friday.

Hamel hitches a ride

Brian Hamel, Republican candidate for the 2nd Congressional District, was given a choice between addressing voters at a GOP Victory 2004 rally last week in Bangor or riding on Air Force One with President Bush from Washington to Maine.

He picked the plane.

Before delving into his stump speech, Bush acknowledged the first-time candidate.

“I also appreciate Brian Hamel,” Bush said. “I flew down from Washington, D.C. with (him.) I had a chance to visit with him. There’s no doubt in my mind he should be the next congressman from the 2nd Congressional District.”

“It was a great opportunity to talk about the needs of Maine’s 2nd Congressional District,” Hamel said in a written statement. “I tried to impress upon the president the need for an East-West highway and the need to tailor the president’s No Child Left Behind’ initiative so that the people of rural Maine benefit.”

This was the second time Hamel has been with Bush to welcome the president to Maine. Hamel greeted Bush during a campaign stop to Wells on Earth Day in April. Hamel also met with Vice President Cheney during a Bangor stop and welcomed White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card to a Maine fund-raiser in August. First Lady Laura Bush mentioned Hamel in a speech during her “W is for Women” rally earlier this month in Lewiston.

Outtakes from Bangor

President Bush used humor to loosen up the crowd of supporters who had been baking in the sun for hours on the tarmac at Bangor International Airport at Thursday’s campaign rally.

He led off with a joke about the bald pate of his second-in-command.

“I’m proud of my running mate Dick Cheney,” Bush said. “Now, listen, I admit he doesn’t have the waviest hair in the race. Some of you out there don’t either. I didn’t pick him for his hair. I picked him for his judgment. I picked him because he’s a man of a lot of experience. I picked him because he can get the job done on behalf of the American people.”

Later in his speech, he shocked the crowd with an unlikely introduction to a familiar name.

Declaring that faith-based groups and their leaders should get “fair treatment” from the federal government, Bush said, “that’s the position I share with Republicans and Democrats, from many callings in life, including a fine citizen in Maine named John Kerry.”

There was an audible hush.

“Now, Kerry runs a Catholic Charities Maine in Falmouth, which helps people all over this state. A few years ago, the city of Portland denied federal funding to Catholic Charities because John Kerry refused to compromise his organization’s beliefs. Here’s what he said: Just because you’re religious, doesn’t mean you should be stopped from providing services.’ That’s one John Kerry I agree with.”

– By staff writers Bonnie Washuk and Christopher Williams