LEWISTON – Pat LaMarche, a former Green Party candidate for governor in 2006 and vice president in 2004, stepped forward Tuesday to say she’s the spin doctor for the latest campaign to bring a casino to Maine.

LaMarche said she’s working as spokeswoman for Seth Carey, a Rumford-based attorney and president of Evergreen Mountain Enterprises, in support of Carey’s efforts to get voters to pass a referendum that would allow a casino with slot machines and table games to be built in Oxford County.

Carey formed his company to run, with a still-unnamed partner, the venture at a still-undisclosed location.

LaMarche said she had no new details to unveil Tuesday beyond her official announcement of joining Carey’s MaineCasinoNow.com political action committee as campaign spokesperson. LaMarche has been working for a few weeks behind the scenes, she said. Last week she appeared at a hearing before the Legislature’s Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee, which voted unanimously against sending Carey’s measure to the full Legislature for a vote, forcing it instead to the ballot box in November.

LaMarche said she joined the campaign because she was impressed by Carey’s sense of commitment toward improving the state’s rural economy and his sense of responsibility toward groups beyond himself. Carey’s proposal would filter 39 percent of the revenue from his casino to a laundry list of state organizations to fund a range of public programs, including a student loan repayment program for Maine residents. “He’s an idealistic guy,” LaMarche said of her new boss.

LaMarche, who is also an author and freelance writer, has never won a statewide campaign, but said she didn’t believe her own storied political past would be much of a factor in the campaign.

“I hope it’s not,” she said.

A key campaign strategy would be to diminish their opponents’ ability to play to the fears people may have over introducing a casino in Oxford County and Maine, LaMarche said. “I think people are tired of having their fears poked at and often fears that are fabricated to begin with.”

LaMarche said they would focus on facts and she hoped to use her flamboyant style to win voters over. She said her next efforts would be to start speaking to local civic and government groups in an effort to build grassroots support for Carey’s plan.

In 2007, voters in Oxford County joined the majority in Maine in defeating a proposal that would have allowed the Passamaquoddy Indian Tribe to open a casino in Washington County.

LaMarche said she met with tribal representatives and also Penobscot Indian Nation representatives before officially joining Carey’s campaign. That meeting included an offer that would have allowed the tribes to join Carey’s venture and benefit from it, if approved, she said. The offer stands, but tribal representatives haven’t accepted the overture, she said.

While the announcement of LaMarche joining the Oxford County effort was a surprise to some, a chief rival of casinos in Maine and the political strategist behind the 2007 referendum defeat of the Washington County plan said he was humored by the news.

“This gives new definition to the phrase ‘Green Party,’ because money apparently talks,” said Dennis Bailey, the executive director of CasinosNo!, the statewide political action committee formed to defeat casino referenda.

Bailey said he wasn’t surprised the tribal leaders hadn’t responded to LaMarche’s offer. “There’s really nothing in it for them, not a thing,” Bailey said. “In fact it bars them or anybody else from opening another casino in Maine for 10 years.”

Bailey also criticized LaMarche for taking a stand against voters’ racist attitudes in a column she penned following the defeat of the Washington County proposal.

“I just don’t believe Maine people having turned down the tribes twice will now give it to a private corporation,” Bailey said. “I think that would be just hypocritical and unfair of her to think otherwise.”

But LaMarche said she believed voters were lied to by casino opponents in the past and the coming campaign would have the success of the Hollywood Slots Casino in Bangor to use as example of the positive type of results a casino could have for Western Maine.

“I think there’s a very good chance that we will win,” LaMarche said. She said Mainers were not weary of voting casinos down, but instead ready for a change.

“It’s time, it’s been time,” she said. “It’s our job to set people’s provoked fears aside.”