PHILLIPS – Until Tuesday, Doug Lisherness, a Phillips-based carpenter, had never voted. That changed when he cast a ballot for a former teammate, sometimes rival and longtime friend: Chandler Woodcock.
“I think Chandler is a great man, I really do,” Lisherness said when asked what pushed him to the polls. “From knowing Chandler in the past, I know that he’s a very honest man – even though all politicians say that they are.”
Most Republican voters in Franklin County apparently agreed. Woodcock handily carried his home county, topping his GOP rivals by landslide-size margins. Woodcock carried the county by more than three votes to every one earned by Peter Mills, who also has ties to Farmington. While Portland’s David Emery was a very distant third. Woodcock won 2,401 votes to Mills’ 716 and Emery’s 153.
Like many people from Farmington and Franklin County, Lisherness has memories of Woodcock reaching back to childhood.
They played town team basketball together. In later years, Lisherness, who coached at Mt. Abram High School, and Woodcock, who coached at Mt. Blue High School, got their girls teams together for scrimmages during the summer.
Other local Woodcock supporters were reveling at the prospects that a man they know and respect is the official GOP candidate for Maine’s governor. Many also seemed pleased that for the first time in decades a candidate with solidly rural roots would run for the Blaine House.
Mt. Blue Assistant Principal Randy Cook voted for Woodcock, too. He said his memories of the man also run deep.
“We grew up as kids together on Middle Street,” Cook said Wednesday. He remembers having Wiffle ball tournaments and playing backyard baseball with Woodcock, then graduating to Little League, where the two played on the same team. He recalls that Woodcock was a “top, top student in high school. He was a good friend, a good student, and an outstanding athlete.”
But folks around here did not turn out in force to support the Republican candidate just because he features in their childhood memories, they said.
Strong’s Tom Piekart voted for Peter Mills on Tuesday but will cast his ballot for Woodcock in November, he said.
“People are not going to like Chandler Woodcock,” because “they’re going to have to bite the bullet” under a Republican governor, Piekart predicted.
Maine needs a governor who will cut spending on welfare and Maine Care, Piekart said. “I don’t believe in entitlement – some of them gotta get off their duff and go to work.”
Still, as Franklin County Sheriff Dennis Pike put it, “It would be rather unique to know on a first-name basis the governor of the state.”
But people here are also holding out hope that Woodcock can give the area some concrete help, Pike said.
People in northern Franklin County – one of the poorest areas in the state – are especially attracted to hard-line Republican candidates who will support working-class families and help bring business back to the mountains, he said.
“We have two Maines,” Piekart said. “Up here, if you are a lumberman and you’ve worked in the woods, you get up at 3 or 3:30 (in the morning) and work until 6 or 7 (at night),” Piekart said. “You don’t think that much of the people” benefiting from Maine’s welfare programs.
Lisherness agreed that Woodcock’s appeal isn’t just that he’s a local.
“I like everything he stands for,” Lisherness said. “And it’s not just because he’s almost in the next town. In this area, in my area – Strong, Phillips, Madrid, Salem – all the industries are just about gone from here. There is not much happening up her for people. They have to travel many miles for employment.”
Woodcock is “going to do everything he can to help areas like ours out. He won’t forget all of the areas like northern Franklin County,” Lisherness said.
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