AUGUSTA – Sen. John McCain will make a return visit to Maine to campaign for Republican candidates while Democrats drop lobsters into the pot as part of their annual fundraiser on Saturday, as political activity takes a midsummer tilt toward the fall elections.
McCain, who is seen as a leading contender for his party’s 2008 presidential nomination, will make his second visit to Maine in two months as he stumps in Yarmouth with gubernatorial nominee Chandler Woodcock of Farmington.
The two have scheduled a news conference at the DeLorme center before they campaign in the southern Maine coastal town. GOP candidates for other Maine offices may join them, said Mike Dennehy, senior strategist for McCain’s political action committee Straight Talk America.
The Arizona senator has campaigned with elected officials throughout the country, and earlier this week McCain picked up Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.’s support for the presidential nomination.
On May 21, McCain was in Maine to attend a fundraiser for David Emery, who finished last in Maine’s three-way GOP gubernatorial primary June 13. When Woodcock won, Emery threw his support behind Woodcock, as did the other contender, Peter Mills.
Saturday’s event will not be a fundraiser, but rather an event to express support for Woodcock, whose campaign is financed by public funds.
McCain “has identified candidates around the country he thinks speak a message of reform,” said Chris Jackson, Woodcock’s campaign manager. After he leaves Maine, McCain will head to Vermont to campaign for Republican congressional candidate Martha Rainville.
While the Republicans campaign, Democrats will hobnob with their top candidates in Phippsburg at a fundraiser billed for the second year as the Muskie Lobster Festival.
Gov. John Baldacci and U.S. Reps. Tom Allen and Michael Michaud, who are all seeking re-election, and U.S. Senate candidate Jean Hay Bright, who hopes to upset veteran GOP Sen. Olympia Snowe in November, plan to attend the event, which was known before last year as the Muskie Lobster Bake.
But the event named in honor Maine Democratic icon Edmund Muskie was changed last year to reflect a broadened focus, said party spokesman Arden Manning. Rather than being limited to political insiders and candidates, it is now open to families. Funds raised will go to the state party, which in turn will distribute to privately funded candidates.
“This year the campaigns are starting earlier than ever,” said Manning.
The weekend events were being planned as surrogates for the top candidates spent part of the week swapping barbs about their stands on state fiscal issues, giving a voters a taste of what’s ahead.
Democrats accused Republicans – and Woodcock in particular – of being inconsistent in their stands on how surplus funds should be allocated, and followed up with a swipe which accused Republicans of sending a negative, doom-and-gloom message about the state’s economy.
Republicans said Woodcock had been misquoted by his Democratic accusers and deserves an apology.
“It is true that we have suspicions about the governor’s claim of a surplus,” said Woodcock campaign co-chair Paul Davis of Sangerville, the outgoing Senate minority leader.
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