Nuggets from the notebook found while sifting through the Election Day detritus  …

The fastest-emerging narrative following Mainers’ resounding vote to uphold Election Day registration was that the decisive margin signaled a rejection of initiatives advanced by the Republican-controlled Legislature. 

“It demonstrates clearly (that voters) are frustrated with Republican leadership in Augusta,” Democratic Party Chairman Ben Grant told the Portland Press Herald following the 60-40 vote in favor of retaining EDR. “That was a pretty big indictment of their approach.”

Are Democrats right to think that way? 

Time will tell, but it may be instructive to consider what kind of campaign the supporters of EDR ran before jumping to any conclusions.

Democrats and progressive groups were undoubtedly the champions of EDR. With a few exceptions, it would be difficult to describe members of the coalition that composed the Protect Maine Votes political action committee as right of center. After all, it’s hard to imagine the group OneMaine, which bills itself as a haven for independents frustrated with the extreme ideologies of the established political parties, aligning itself with Republicans on very many issues. 

But despite the decidedly left-leaning membership of Protect Maine Votes — and its financial backers — the coalition made a concerted effort to make sure the EDR debate wasn’t a partisan one.

Even during the debate that led to the law that attempted to repeal EDR, groups like the ACLU of Maine told the public that same-day voter registration benefited all Mainers, regardless of party. Thousands of Republicans had used it in 2010 when the GOP swept into power. Democrats and independents used it, too. 

The coalition that formed the people’s veto campaign recycled this message.

“Same-day voter registration works for everyone. It has for nearly 40 years,” went the refrain. 

The Yes on 1 ads never mentioned political parties. The closest it came was during the group’s final 30-second TV spot in which the narrator said “politicians in Augusta” had tried to take away these voting rights.

“Politicians,” not “Republicans.”

The coalition stayed on message, even as Maine GOP Chairman Charlie Webster tried to make EDR a partisan issue and mobilize Republicans.

Even when it was over, when every Maine county in Republican- and Democrat-leaning districts voted to retain Maine’s 38-year-old EDR law, the message was consistent.

“What this shows is that all Mainers — Republicans, Democrats and independents — take their voting rights very seriously,” said David Farmer, spokesman for Protect Maine Votes.

That the campaign was a battle against a Republican initiative may have been obvious to political junkies. But that’s not what the general public heard from the Protect Maine Votes campaign.

Given that this nonpartisan message resonated with an overwhelming majority of voters, is Grant right to claim that Mainers are frustrated with the Republican Legislature? Maybe.

Or maybe a lot of Mainers who support other GOP initiatives were indifferent to this one, as Webster claimed on election night. Maybe that in itself is an indictment of the GOP attempt to repeal EDR. 

Maybe the vote on Election Day was representative of the coalition’s impressive get-out-the-vote effort. But again, if the GOTV drive is what pushed people to the polls on Tuesday, do those voters represents a broad cross-section of Mainers, or simply a segment of voters already sympathetic to Democratic causes? 

That’s a lot of maybes, a lot of questions. 

We’ll find out in 2012 whether Democrats or Republicans have the answers.

Incursion in GOP stronghold

An interesting sidebar from Election Day that may feed into the aforementioned discussion were the results of the state House District 24 race. 

In a three-way race, Raymond Wallace, a Republican, edged out Democratic challenger David Pearson, 1,170 to 1,026. Green independent candidate Lesley Maynard finished third with 186 votes.

Democrats haven’t held the District 24 seat in more than 30 years. The region, which represents the towns of Athens, Charleston, Dexter, Garland, Harmony and Ripley, is GOP territory. In 2010, the recently resigned Rep. Fred Wintle, of Garland, won the seat with more than 1,000 votes.

That Pearson came within 126 votes of Wallace would seem encouraging for Democrats. House Minority Leader Emily Cain, D-Orono, said, “We brought a tough fight deep into a Republican stronghold,” an effort, she said, that showed rural Mainers were troubled by the direction of the GOP.

Expect similar rhetoric in 2012, as Democrats look to use the early effects of the GOP’s health insurance overhaul to gain traction in rural Maine.

LePage’s fault?

By now, most readers have probably read Lewiston Mayor Larry Gilbert’s comments on election night in which he blamed the defeat of the Lewiston casino on Gov. Paul LePage.

Essentially, Gilbert ripped LePage for doing little to help the city he grew up in. More specifically, he said LePage inserted himself in the campaign when he told listeners at a Colby College forum that the state probably couldn’t support five casinos.

The comments were scooped by the anti-casino group which used them in robo-calls to voters. Gilbert said the comments persuaded voters to kill the Lewiston project as well as a Biddeford-Calais racino deal.

But it appears those comments could cut both ways, given that the governor remains a polarizing public figure in Maine.

A lifelong Democrat told the Sun Journal that he had planned to vote no on the casinos. When he heard LePage’s comments, he changed his mind and voted yes. 

smistler@sunjournal.com

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