It’s the season of Halloween in Maine. Befitting the home state of Stephen King, we are the host and inspiration to as much spiritual, mystical and supernatural as any domain in the country. Some of the Bangor writer’s movies such as “Pet Sematary” are explicitly recited as taking place in Maine and many others seem to reflect influences of King’s life in the Pine Tree State.

 Coming as it does within the final days before the November elections, it’s also an occasion for public figures to merge its mission with its message. A common promotional exercise entails depositing personalized pumpkins with the voter’s and the candidate’s name carved into it, for example. Demonizing one’s opposition by portraying it as a Halloween costumed witch or scarecrow has also been an occasional campaign motif.

 One Maine political leader was captivated with so much Halloween spirit that his zeal led to almost fatal consequences. This happened in South Portland nine years ago. Then, Democratic activist Tom Connolly just missed being shot by police in a gambit in which Connolly wore an Osama bin Laden costume while brandishing a toy assault rifle. During the episode, police were called to an Interstate 295 overpass where motorists had spotted Connolly wearing a white robe and carrying the toy gun. Connolly’s garb also included plastic dynamite and grenades.

 Not knowing whether the gun was real, South Portland police officers were “a fraction of a second away from firing at Connolly,” according to District Attorney Stephanie Anderson.

 Connolly, the Democratic party’s nominee for governor eight years earlier, insisted that he didn’t intend to evoke such a fearful reaction. Instead, according to Connolly, he was trying the make a political statement about the then-pending referendum on the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights or “TABOR.” (Whether in spite of or because of Connolly’s dramatic opposition, voters a week later soundly defeated the TABOR proposal.)

 Connolly, who also made national headlines when on the eve of the 2000 presidential election he divulged candidate George Bush’s 1976 Kennebunkport OUI arrest, apologized for the 2006 episode. He also agreed to perform 30-hours of public service to raise awareness of the dangers of toy guns, which apparently lead to the deaths of some 100 people a year because they are so frequently mistaken for the real thing.

 This columnist also went in search of perhaps more orthodox Maine Halloween political wisdom. He found it by resurrecting comments of two of the foremost departed dieties of the Twentieth Century, Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, who died 20 years ago this past May, and Sen. Edmund Muskie, who died 20-years ago this coming March.

 Halloween lyrics for Muskie came at the outset of speeches he gave at a high point of his political career. This came just as he was embarking on the final five days of the 1968 campaign that came within a fraction of a percentage point of making him the vice president of the United States. In a speech at the New York State Democratic Dinner, Muskie observed:

 “You know, this morning as I read the newspaper and these stories of the campaign of Mr. Nixon and Mr. Wallace, I was reminded that this was Halloween. This is the day when Americans traditionally chase the ghosts and the goblins into the dark places from which they come.”

 The Maine senator then focused much of his attention of the address on third- party candidate George Wallace, whom he decried as preying upon elements of fear and hatred among Americans. Muskie then called upon the country to so “thoroughly reject his message that it can never live in the United States.” (The following week, Wallace came in third with just over 13.5% of the popular vote.)

 Muskie then derided Nixon for refusing an invitation by the Humphrey-Muskie ticket to a debate. He also went on to ridicule the eight-year Eisenhower-Nixon tenure of the 1950s as one besieged by three economic recessions, an outcome that he felt compared unfavorably with the more buoyant economic times of the 1960s Kennedy-Johnson years.

 Somewhat less politically partisan than Muskie’s Halloween day thoughts but nevertheless still ardent in her own Halloween beliefs, was Sen. Margaret Chase Smith. In a 1949 Halloween Day newspaper column she urged Americans to abandon the more negative practices of the occasion.

 “Although it was originally intended as a reverent annual observance in hallowed respect for the saints of the church, Halloween has become a night for mischief and destruction for our children.”

 Instead, the Maine senator urged alternatives be adopted to replace the custom of a night “when parents tolerate and condone juvenile acts which they discourage and prohibit” the other 364 days of the year.

 One substitute for the random trick-or-treat exercises she decried — holding supervised private parties rather than allowing children to wander the streets at random — has indeed gained momentum in the ensuing years.

 A second proposal the trailblazing senator made in her Halloween Day column has not seemed to have gained quite as much traction but it’s still one worth considering today. In it, Smith wondered why the “door-to-door spirit of children” could not be replaced with a contest among them to see how much each of them could collect for charitable causes.

 “Such a house-to-house canvas under supervision on Halloween would be an example and training to children in helping their unfortunate brothers and sisters,” she wrote.

 Prizes could be awarded to all who participated with additional prizes issued to those who collected the most, Senator Smith suggested.

Though Senator Smith’s proposal has not become as broadly accepted as she would have wished, the next year after her column appeared, UNICEF inaugurated its “Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF” campaign, one that has now raised more than $175-million for the U.S. Fund for UNICEF since it was founded in 1950.

Moreover, solicitation by children — the sale of Girl Scout cookies comes to mind –- is nothing new but the re-channeling of Halloween energies to a wide array of philanthropic endeavors would require a reoriented mind set of how our culture views its Oct. 31 rituals. For one thing, homeowners would not be likely to bestow much largesse upon a disguised juvenile supplicant. The solicitation, as Sen. Smith pointed out, would thus need to be carefully supervised and coordinated, the children, for example, accompanied by credible and locally recognized unmasked adults.

It’s a proposal, however, that no doubt has potential for winning adherents across the aisle, one that no doubt Democrats like Tom Connolly and Ed Muskie could join the GOP senator in embracing.

It’s something to think about as we approach a Halloween weekend this year.

   Paul Mills is a Farmington attorney well known for his analyses and historical understanding of public affairs in Maine; he can be reached at [email protected]