By David Farmer,Staff Writer

PORTLAND – Flush with cash but facing a difficult challenge in introducing herself to voters, independent candidate for governor Barbara Merrill began a three-stop tour of the state Tuesday.

Starting off in Portland, Merrill unveiled a new television ad that will begin airing statewide this week and used the opportunity to reiterate her criticism of both the Democratic and Republican parties.

Merrill left the Democratic Party earlier this year, midway through her first term as a state representative from Appleton and in preparation for her run for the Blaine House.

While three Republican candidates were fighting it out for their party’s nomination and Democratic Gov. John Baldacci was dispatching a little-known adversary, Merrill was busy collecting the 4,000 signatures necessary to get on the ballot and the 2,500 $5 contributions needed to qualify as a Maine Clean Election candidate.

She was successful on both counts, and recently received an initial payment for her campaign of $400,000.

Now she has to make up the advantage in name recognition that incumbent Baldacci, state Sen. Chandler Woodcock, R-Farmington, and Green Independent Pat LaMarche enjoy – Woodcock from the primary and LaMarche from her run as the vice presidential nominee of her party in 2004.

Merrill’s message – in person and in her television ad – remains consistent: The partisan climate in Augusta has left Democrats and Republicans desperate to hold onto power instead of working for Maine’s people.

“While the political parties have played political games, the interests of Mainers have been ignored,” Merrill said before leveling a three-pronged, bipartisan critique of the state’s current leaders.

“The budget has been spinning out of control over four years,” Merrill said, echoing the fiscal theme that dominated the Republican primary debate. “By January of last year, it was clear to Maine people that we needed a complete review of what we’re spending and a real debate about what we can afford.”

She also criticized the parties for their handling of property taxes.

“Two years ago, the voters of Maine passed a people’s referendum to force the state to pay 55 percent of school costs. The governor and the Legislature promptly and actually repealed the bill,” Merrill said. “Next they tabled constitutional property tax reform that would have protected Maine homeowners from huge increases in property taxes. Each party instead insisted on their own version and nothing happened. … These partisan stalemates are driving Mainers out of their homes.”

Her final policy attack came on the environment, where she used the dispute over discharge permits along the Androscoggin River to make her point.

“On the environment, too, the parties are letting Maine down. The governor and both of the parties are responsible for postponing the cleanup of the Androscoggin River. … Over the objections of the people of Lewiston and Auburn, that bill was passed by both parties to put special interest contributors ahead of the economic and health interests of the entire state of Maine.”

Merrill has dubbed her three-town tour as the Wake Up and Smell the Coffee campaign. Keeping with the theme, Tuesday’s event in Portland was held at the Coffee Roasting Co. on Commercial Street. Later Tuesday, she traveled to Ellsworth and the Riverside Cafe, and today she will wrap up her trip with a stop at the Eastland Hotel in Presque Isle.

In addition to Merrill, Woodcock, LaMarche and Baldacci, Auburn’s John Michael, Falmouth’s David Jones and Phillip NaPier of Windham have qualified for the ballot. Like Merrill, Woodcock and LaMarche are running as public financed candidates. Michael is still trying to qualify for public funding.