AUGUSTA (AP) – Losses for President Bush and the proposed property tax cap in Maine pose questions about the political futures of two prominent Republicans at the forefront of both unsuccessful election campaigns.

Unofficial returns had Bush, whose state campaign organization was chaired by former GOP gubernatorial candidate Peter Cianchette, losing Maine to Democrat John Kerry by a relatively wide margin of 53 percent to 45 percent.

The tax cap ballot question, whose leading champions included former Republican state Sen. Phil Harriman of Yarmouth, went down even more decisively – by better that 3-2, according to unofficial returns.

For those of the all-publicity-is-good-publicity school of thought, being associated with a losing campaign need not be an out-and-out drawback.

Future political endeavors will play out amid the circumstances of the time and political success stories such as those of Democrat George Mitchell and Republican Susan Collins – each of whom ran for governor and lost – include chapters on failure and subsequent recovery.

Brief interviews Friday with Cianchette and Harriman found two men still enamored with public life but with different-sounding timetables. On the likelihood of Harriman seeking office in the near term, don’t bet on it. As far Cianchette, don’t bet against it.

“I haven’t made any decision yet,” Cianchette said, while adding that he had not ruled in or out a second race for governor in 2006.

“I am going to try to continue to provide leadership for the Republican Party and our candidates and for the state as a whole,” he said.

The Maine electorate was not especially kind to Republicans in this year’s voting.

Bush lost the state and Democratic congressmen Tom Allen, who failed to win the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1994, and Michael Michaud handily won re-election. The GOP appears to have made gains in the Maine House of Representatives but again looks to be in the minority. In the battle for control of the Senate, a Republican drive for control fell short.

Cianchette, a former lawmaker from South Portland, said there was a “bittersweet” flavor for him in the Bush re-election that came without electoral votes from Maine, but that the state GOP should be strengthened by organizational improvements made in the course of the campaign.

“It will have a lasting impact,” Cianchette said. “We have that apparatus in place and we should build on it.”

He promised to give “as great deal of consideration next year” to a new Blaine House candidacy.

Harriman, meanwhile, said he too hopes to contribute to public debate but in the short-term has important and demanding family matters – paying for college educations.

Harriman said he welcomed the post-election declarations of commitment to tax reform by Democratic Gov. John Baldacci and was committed himself to “playing an active role in helping to change the economic dynamics of the state.”

Harriman suggested a role in government would interest him at the right time.

“In the long term, I would like to find ways to serve in a public capacity,” he said.

But Harriman said that desire did not motivate his involvement with the tax cap campaign.

“This was not any trampoline to get ready to run for governor or any other office,” he said.

Despite the referendum defeat, Harriman expressed satisfaction that the issue remains alive.

“Sometimes you win by losing, I guess,” he said.

In January 1996, a little more than a week after U.S. Sen. William Cohen announced he was retiring, Harriman held a news conference in the State House Hall of Flags to say he would bypass the race.