By the evidence of Tuesday’s primary voting, Mainers have decided to hunker down, waiting out the recession amid a wave of discontent with government. Both winning candidates for governor can accurately be described as the most experienced in the race.

And for the sixth time in as many years, voters rejected yet another attempt to significantly reshape the state’s tax system. These efforts have come from both right and left. In 2004, voters scuttled a Proposition 13- (California) style of tax limitation, and defeated a Taxpayer Bill of Rights (Colorado) not once but twice, in 2006 and 2009. For good measure, they squashed an attempt to lower the excise tax on new cars, also in 2009.

On tax changes proposed by majority Democrats in the Legislature, voters turned down beverage taxes for Dirigo Health in 2008, and now, tax reform.

One might conclude from the latest result that it’s problematic to put a complex piece of legislation, shaped over five years at the Legislature, in front of the voters for an up-or-down vote. The ad campaigns on both sides of the measure were far from edifying or informative.

The other possibility is that, onerous and inefficient as various parts of Maine’s tax system might seem to be, voters still prefer the devil they know to a new system, even one that would seem to benefit them. A similar dynamic dominated the national health care reform debate.

Voting on tax reform was remarkably consistent around the state. The repeal side prevailed in all 16 counties, with the least support in three coastal counties – Sagadahoc, Cumberland, and Hancock – and the widest margins in the rural north – Franklin, Piscataquis and Somerset.

Interestingly, voters are willing to make a sharp distinction over their unease at tampering with the tax system and their relative comfort with spending. As they have on bonds for over a decade, voters had no problem with the $108 million revised bond package. The only close vote, on Question 4, labeled “economic development,” included projects as disparate as redevelopment of the Brunswick Naval Air Station and a fund for downtown renewal. There was nothing like the recoil of 1991, when four of five bonds were defeated amid anger over an earlier shutdown of state government.

Similar conclusions can also be drawn from the governor’s race. For both Republicans and Democrats, the winning candidates embodied the best-known and most familiar parts of each party’s platform. Innovation had little appeal.

It’s true that most of the Republicans advocated running the state like a business and touted their business credentials, but Paul LePage not only espoused a simple, outspoken brand of fiscal conservatism, but had one credential the other six candidates lacked. While four had business experience and two were political veterans, only LePage had both. As general manager of Marden’s and the elected mayor of Waterville, he gave evidence of being able to operate in both spheres.

Much has been made of LePage’s tea party affinities, but the candidate he will remind long-time Mainers of is Jim Longley, the independent who won the governorship in 1974, defeating an establishment Republican, Jim Erwin, and a young George Mitchell in his first bid for elective office as a Democrat.

Longley spent four years shaking up Augusta in every way he knew before departing after a single term.

In nominating Elizabeth Mitchell as their candidate, by an equally decisive margin, Democrats endorsed one of their longest-serving and most experienced legislators.

Mitchell not only has the distinction of being the only woman in any state to preside over both the House and Senate, but her legislative service dates back to the Longley years. Her first statewide race came against Sen. William Cohen in 1984, and her durability is second only to former House Speaker John Martin, while her success has been arguably greater.

LePage carried every county except Oxford, taken by Les Otten. Mitchell was the choice in 14 counties, losing only Cumberland to Steve Rowe and Somerset to Pat McGowan. All of those exceptions involved hometown favorites.

Both Mitchell and LePage are tough and experienced campaigners, qualities that clearly helped them in the primaries. Because Mitchell is so unmistakably a Democrat, and LePage – in the current configuration of the GOP – is so rock-ribbed a Republican, they present an opening for Eliot Cutler, the only independent in the race who looks to be making a serious and well-financed bid.

Mainers have little patience for political novices most of the time. The dynamics among these three veterans between now and November should be fascinating to watch.