The Phillies and Rays have (finally, now the rain’s stopped) wrapped up the baseball season just in time to allow Americans to turn last-minute attention to choosing a leader. The election will soon be over.

Though the major parties made history this year by nominating the first black and the second female candidates to their respective tickets, there’s another historic dimension that gives occasion to celebrate:

This is the first presidential election since Maine became a state in 1820 that two of four major party candidates hail from states with smaller populations than ours.

While small towns like President Clinton’s Hope, President Carter’s Plains, and even President Bush’s Crawford – and Kennebunkport – have basked in the national limelight, small states have yet to earn their day in the sun.

Only when Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire was elected in 1852 did a state with a population less than Maine successfully claim the presidency for one of its own.

So from Maine, the nation’s 40th most populous state, our 1.3 million hats are off to Sen. Joe Biden’s Delaware (850,000 residents, 45th in the nation) and Gov. Sarah Palin’s Alaska, the 48th! (670,000 residents.)

How then should Mainers vote?

I recently turned to Maine’s most senior political emeriti – 87-year-old former Gov. John Reed and 84-year-old former U.S. Senator William Hathaway – for input.

Reed, a GOP governor during the first seven years of the tumultuous 1960s, is hopeful for a Republican victory and supports Sen. John McCain and Sen. Susan Collins, who both,. like Reed, hail from a moderate, independent element in the Republican Party.

Reed, who like Collins is a native of Aroostook County, also recalled admiration for Collins’s grandfather, Sam Collins, a state senator who chaired the Legislature’s powerful Appropriations committee during Reed’s first term in the House in 1955. Indeed, Collins gave Reed a crucial early break the next year, when the senator gave up his Caribou-area seat, giving Reed an opportunity to move into the Legislature’s upper chamber.

Reed also recalls favorable associations with Susan Collins, dating to her time as staff assistant to Sen. William Cohen in the late l970s, when Reed discussed issues with her on behalf of the Buildings and Trades Association.

Having led Maine’s government through various budgetary dilemmas, Reed said he’s “never seen anything like the present financial conditions” and feels McCain is best suited by his experience to confront them.

Taking a different approach is Hathaway, once a Lewiston attorney, and the senior elder statesman among Democrats. Hathaway was a four-term Congressman when he upset the legendary Sen. Margaret Chase Smith in 1972, only to be unseated himself six years later by another political icon, Sen.William Cohen.

On who is best suited to address the economy, Hathaway observed, “McCain’s still a captive of the trickle down theory for our economic recovery whereas [Sen. Barack] Obama’s focus is on the middle income people.”

Though an Obama supporter, Hathaway sounds more positive on the economy than other Obama advocates.

“Our economic situation is not as bad as the pundits make it out to be,” Hathaway remarked in an e-mail to me. “The bailout should be very helpful and if our worldwide trading partners do the same we should be back to normal in no time. If Congress had allowed FDR to spend more, our recovery from the depression of the 1930s would have been much quicker but in that era deficit spending was a ‘no, no’ even among Democrats.”

Though Reed and Hathaway come from opposing teams in the world series of elections, they share a commitment to a democratic process that faces a crucial moment at this time.

The decision is with the voters.

Paul H. Mills is a Farmington attorney well known for his analyses and historical understanding of Maine’s political scene. He can be reached by e-mail: [email protected].