LEWISTON – For the 10 candidates for the Legislature crammed behind plastic folding tables at the B Street Community Center, Wednesday night’s forum was a test of policy details, endurance and good humor.

Shoulder to shoulder with no space between them, the four Republicans and six Democrats fielded questions that dealt with policy minutia and broader – almost unanswerable – questions of love and war.

The candidates’ night was sponsored by four groups that might typically be considered friendly to Democrats: The Maine People’s Alliance, The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 567, the Western Maine Central Labor Council and The Environmental Health Strategy Center.

But the disagreements between the candidates were few and always cordial. Of the nine questions that candidates managed to navigate within the two-and-half hour forum, the sharpest differences appeared over the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, raising the minimum wage and Dirigo Health, the state’s attempt at providing universal health care coverage.

Provided with the first four questions in advance, the 10 candidates were well-prepared and often nuanced discussions of the topics – at least as nuanced as an answer compressed within just a few moments will allow.

The Democrats – Sen. Peggy Rotundo of Lewiston, Reps. Deborah Simpson, Elaine Makas, William Walcott of Lewiston and candidates Mark Samson and Richard Wagner – largely defended Dirigo as a work in progress that needs to be improved but is expanding access to people who didn’t have insurance before while controlling costs.

Republicans – candidates Michael Beaulieu of Auburn and David Hughes, Laurier Lachance and John Painter, all of Lewiston – offered critiques of the program, but did not launch the sort of full-throated attacks often heard by Dirigo’s opponents.

Beaulieu questioned whether government could ever be as efficient as private enterprise in delivering health insurance, and David Hughes offered that Dirigo and market-based reforms proposed by Republicans are not mutually exclusive.

Painter called Dirigo the “right concept at the wrong level” and said the health care is a right and that universal coverage should be provided at the national level.

On the the minimum wage, the question was straight-forward. Would you or did you support raising the minimum wage and would you support doing so in the future. Republicans split on the issue.

Beaulieu said he wouldn’t have supported the bill passed last session to raise the minimum wage. Hughes agreed that there needs to be a minimum wage, but hedged on supporting its increase, saying instead that bringing more jobs to Maine would put upward pressure on salaries. Lachance said he would have supported the hike. Painter, while saying it’s a difficult balancing act of wages and competitiveness, said he would haven’t raised the minimum wage.

Democrats were united in strong support for raising the minimum wage. The minimum wage of $6.50 will increase to $6.75 in October and to $7 in 2007.

On TABOR, some of the candidates held closely to their party’s platform while others strayed.

The incumbent Democrats – with the exception of Walcott – all oppose TABOR, as did Democratic candidates Samson and Wagner and Republican Painter. Walcott joined Republicans Beaulieu and Lachance in a coalition of the undecideds.

Hughes was the only candidate to say he supports TABOR.

When the audience got its turn to ask questions, the two dozen or so people attending got their first peak at the personalities of the men and women competing for their votes in November.

One questioner asked: Would you consider taking action to prevent Maine National Guard soldiers from serving in Iraq. Responses were thoughtful and personal, if not terribly divergent.

Regardless of how unpopular the war might be and what costs it might level on the state, it would be inappropriate for Maine to unilaterally decide not to fight, the candidates said.

“I understand it’s a popular message,” Walcott said. “But we can’t have states going or not going alone.”

“I don’t think we need to fight about who’s kids have to go to Iraq and who’s kids don’t,” Wagner said.

And Hughes added, “We’ve already fought a war here that says states can’t go wondering off on their own. … We can work for change in other ways.”

And finally, the unusual: Would you allow your son or daughter to marry someone from a different country?

The candidates took the question seriously, even if they joked about the independence of their children and the unimportance of a parent’s opinion in the matter, and offered glimpses into their personal life.

Makas and Walcott don’t have children, but if they did, it would be love that would guide their thinking, they said.

One of Lachance’s daughters was married just last weekend. Painter’s wife is Hungarian and Rotundo’s parents came from different cultures. Simpson wouldn’t want her son to move too far away from home or some place difficult to visit, and nobody – nobody – is going to be good enough for Samson’s daughter.

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