News that the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain has turned its attention to Maine – well, the 2nd District anyway – has political prognosticators in a tizzy about what this says about the state.

Chris Potholm, the political oracle of Bowdoin College, told the Bangor Daily News a visit – not by McCain, rather running mate Gov. Sarah Palin – could seal the deal here for the Arizona senator.

“These independent voters [of the 2nd District] tend to care less about policy and records, but want someone who thinks and acts like them,” says Potholm. “And of the four major candidates, she has the anti-establishment message.”

Meanwhile, an Associated Press report said Gov. Palin might be reminded of Alaska by northern Maine’s “vast expanse” of shimmery lakes, pristine forests and craggy coastline, and its people who share her passions for “hunting, snowmobiling and the great outdoors.”

These undertones, though, are related to a myopia of political campaigns: the tendency to generalize people, based on quick, easy analyses. Many times, these are leaps of political faith.

The broad 2nd District might be the largest east of St. Louis and contain more trees than people, but its politics belie easy definition. As a district, we’re positively fickle, with a voting history that’s neither true blue nor deep red, but most every hue in between.

Two powerful senators hail from this district: Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Yet their influence still delivered for McCain, in the Maine Republican caucus earlier this year, a resounding victory by Mitt Romney, one of the few states the former Massachusetts governor actually won.

A current Democratic congressman and a Democratic governor also call this district home. Maine’s 2nd District is also noted for siring a Republican congressman who voted to impeach President Richard Nixon and later served as Secretary of Defense under a Democratic president.

See? There’s nothing straightforward about politics north of the “Volvo line.”

Potholm, in an April interview with the Sun Journal’s own political oracle Paul Mills, said the district’s geographic challenges – “a lot of miles and territory,” he said – make winning it a challenge, but rewarding. (Just like New York: if you can make it in Caribou, you can make it anywhere.)

So what does it mean? If expert testimony is indication, the McCain campaign – since Maine splits its electoral votes – thinks 2nd District voters are like-minded and the Alaskan governor, since she’s independent-minded and outdoorsy, will play well here.

Hey sure, could be.

We think it’s too easy to consider voters in broad swaths. With the McCain campaign coming to town, the knee-jerk reaction is to predict what this says about the 2nd District.

Given its history, though, the more enlightening issue will be what the 2nd District says about the McCain campaign.