Cheers and Jeers (Focus On Maine Edition!)

From the Great State of OREGON (home of the Other Portland):

Is this Bill in Portland Maine that I see before me, the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee...

But wait! NO! It’s not Bill in Portland! It’s Naismith's Very Special 50-State Diary, #25 in a series between now and the election, celebrating the halfway point and drawing attention to itself by looking at the GREAT STATE OF MAINE! State, Federal, Innies, Outies and the whole dang clambake!

Focus on Maine starts in There’s Moreville...[Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]

Gong!  Gong!!  BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!

By the Numbers::  
Number of times Maine has voted Republican for President in the past four elections: 0
Number of Democratic Senators in New England: 10
Number of them who are actually Democrats: 8
Number of them who are from Maine: 0
Number of Maine Senators who are called "moderate Republicans" by the MSM: 2
Number of those who carry Bush’s water for him, every time: 2
Number of Congressional Districts in Maine: 2
Number of those in danger of flipping to the Republicans in 2008: 0
Breakdown of the Maine State Senate: 18D, 17 R  (Whoah, Nellie! That’s cutting it a little close, wouldn’t you say?)
Breakdown of the Maine Assembly: 89D, 58R (that’s more like it)
Number of Nonvoting Indian members, in addition to the above: 2
Number of breath test machines in Maine that have been tested by a drunk cop to see if they respond to "rectal air": 1 (the answer was apparently "no", but if you’re pulled over in Maine, you may be required to put your mouth on that very tube. Think before you drink!)

Gong!  Gong!!  BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!

CHEERS to the Lobster State! With a healthy mix of New England liberals, French Canadians, Stephen King fans, deep sea fisherman, and backwoods loners, Maine is a diverse state. Portland is the blue anchor, of course, with Democrats also doing well on the coast and in the state capitol of Augusta.  Bangor is a lighter shade of blue, in part due to the dominance of a local newspaper that carries the GOP’s water. The rural north part of the state is more Republican but less populated.

http://www.nationalatlas.com/...

Gong!  Gong!!  BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!

CHEERS to Turn Maine Blue, the most prominent single-state blog in Maine. For thousands of down easters, TMB is the preferred way to say, "Enquiring Minds Want to Know".
http://www.turnmaineblue.com/

Gong!  Gong!!  BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!

CHEERS to Four safe Electoral votes to Barack Obama!  Maine is the only state besides Nebraska that gives out its EVs by Congressional District, such that if Obama carried the 1st district (and Maine overall) but narrowly lost the 2nd, Obama would get three of Maine’s EVs and McCarrion would get one. Fortunately, the odds of Obama losing either district are only slightly better than that of Pope "Papa Ratzi" Benedictus suddenly unfolding into a giant robot and incinerating the Vatican with laser beams from his eyes.

Gong!  Gong!!  BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!

CHEERS to Tom Allen. You loved him in "Home Improvement"! You loved him in "Galaxy Quest"! You even loved him as the Representative from the First District! Now step up and love Tom’s new role as THE BIG ONE for Maine 2008!

There aren’t many takeover opportunities in solid blue Obama states this year, and the ones there are have had trouble getting traction (see Oregon and Minnesota). Maine is no exception. Allen has been consistently polling behind incumbent Bush Republican Sue Collins.  The good news is, Allen’s momentum has been improving as he continues to close the gap.  There are Senate seats, including the one in neighboring New Hampshire, that we are very likely to win; the one in Maine is absolutely vital if we are to get to 60 seats (even more so if you want 61 and a spayed Lieberman), and will only happen if a million netroots voices shout the secret of Collins’ hard-right Bush cronyism all the way to Arroostock County.

http://www.tomallen.org/...

JEERS to another fake maverick.  Olympia Snowe, who may well be the only Republican Senator in the entire northeast by 2011, actually has some basis for her claim to "moderate Republican" status, to the point where some wistful progressives dare to hope she will one day switch parties.  There are no such illusions about Collins; it’s the Bushling Behind the Curtain all the way.  She knows how to be friendly and personally appealing (and even the late Jesse Helms was famous in his own state as a courtly, polite gentleman to his white constituents), and to put up a good front, and to publicly discuss the progressive side of an issue before quietly voting the opposite way, and the media props up her Potemkin "moderate" image.  If the good people of Maine are confronted with the truth about her voting record, they will be appalled, and will turn her out of office. It’s our job to make that happen.

Incidentally, it seems to me Allen is doing EVERYTHING right. His ads in which people in Maine are asked about how they think Collins votes on Iraq, or the minimum wage, and –surprise!—it’s not the moderate vote they expected—is the most devastating possible attack in this kind of race and this kind of State.  Even better than my Steven King "Collins even scares ME" (Get it? ME==Maine) idea.

Good luck. Win this one for Bill in Portland!

Gong!  Gong!!  BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!

Your  Kickass Cassowary Pic of the Day: Run, forest! Run!

http://www.youtube.com/...

Gong!  Gong!!  BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!

This is another edition of One word Answer Man! SocialRetard4865 asks, McCain brought in Wilford Brimley as his answer to Chuck Norris, and the McCain Girls as his answer to Obama Girl. What’s he gonna dredge up to answer the Blogosphere?

Pigeons.

Gong!  Gong!!  BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!

CHEERS to Governor Baldacci (D), one of the safest Governors of 2008, seeing as how he’s not up for election at all, nor is any other statewide office besides Senator.  Baldacci is in mid-second-term, and IIRC is term-limited. Hopefully there’ll be a good Dem in the wings in two years (anyone know what happened to Tom Andrews, Allen’s predecessor in the 1st District? I kinda liked him), but that’s a fight for another day.

Gong!  Gong!!  BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!

CHEERS to a solid blue state legislature!  Democrats in the lower house outnumber Republicans 89 to 58, with two Independents caucusing with the Democrats (that’s in addition to the nonvoting tribal members), for a total majority of 33 seats.

The Senate has a one-seat majority, 18R-17D, and Maine defies the norm by electing the entire legislature every two years (as opposed to giving the upper chamber longer, staggered terms so that only half or a third of them are up in any given election), so we’ll have to fight to retain our majority here.  Hopefully long Obama/Allen/Pingree coattails will do the trick, and Baldacci and the Assembly will be able to enact a progressive agenda for Maine without obstructionism from the right.  I’ve included a link to the official list of candidates. CHEERS for running a Democrat in each and every seat. JEERS that a few of them dropped out, after registering. CHEERS that so did some of the Repulicans, too.

http://www.state.me.us/...

Gong!  Gong!!  BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!

CHEERS to Chellie Pingree, Democrat for congress in Allen’s district, the safer of the two for Democrats.  Pingree is a former State Senate majority leader who ran for Collins’ Senate Seat six years ago and didn’t make it.  Payback will be in 2009, when Pingree’s in congress and Collins is not.

http://chelliepingree.com/

Gong!  Gong!!  BuddaBuddaBudda... GONG!!!

CHEERS to Mike Michaud, Democratic incumbent in the Second district, going for his fourth term.  Michaud became a State Senator in the Newtist year of 1994, even beating a Republican incumbent while Republicans were trashing democrats nationwide. He’s also the first French-Canadian to go to Congress from Maine, and his seat is safe.

http://www.michaudforcongress.com/

CHEERS to creative Redistricting!  Not that we need it much, with the 2nd starting to do quite well as a light blue district all on its own...but I do wonder what it would be like to try and even out the districts a little.  The 1st could be made to have all of York, Oxford, Franklin, Androscoggin and North Cumberland Counties, which would have it hugging the New Hampshire border and a chunk of thinly populated pine forest, leaving the new Second with Augusta and a lot of solid blue coast that is presently in the 1st.  Not sure if it would extend along the coast far enough to get to a little of Portland itself, but it would definitely make the 2nd that much more safe for the Democrats.  Even without doing this, with every new round of redistricting the 1st becomes more compact and Portland-centric, while the 2nd gets more blue territory by default.  Which could explain why the 2nd has been a pretty easy win for Democrats ever since Snowe moved out and to the Senate.

One Year Ago in the 50-State Diary series, July 22, 2007: Hmmm, what would it be like if I profiled the 50 states during the 2008 election, one by one, profiling every race from the Edwards-Giuliani horserace to the state legislature breakdown? That would be awesome! Let me make a note to think about that again in April...

AND JUST 24 MORE:

CHEERS to all the previous diaries in this series:

Delaware: http://www.dailykos.com/...

Arkansas: http://www.dailykos.com/...

Illinois: http://www.dailykos.com/...

Texas, Part One:  http://www.dailykos.com/...

Texas, Part Two: http://www.dailykos.com/...

Utah: http://www.dailykos.com/...

Massachusetts: http://www.dailykos.com/...

North Carolina:  http://www.dailykos.com/...

Hawaii: http://www.dailykos.com/...

Mississippi: http://www.dailykos.com/...

Oregon:  http://www.dailykos.com/...

Ohio: http://www.dailykos.com/...

Maryland: http://www.dailykos.com/...

North Dakota: http://www.dailykos.com/...

Alabama: http://www.dailykos.com/...

California, Part one: http://www.dailykos.com/...

California, Part two: http://www.dailykos.com/...

Vermont:  http://www.dailykos.com/...

Iowa: http://www.dailykos.com/...

Virginia: http://www.dailykos.com/...

Wyoming: http://www.dailykos.com/...

Pennsylvania: http://www.dailykos.com/...

New Mexico: http://www.dailykos.com/...

Kentucky: http://www.dailykos.com/...

Nebraska: http://www.dailykos.com/...

Friggin’ IDAHO: http://www.dailykos.com/...

•  Tips, Recs and Cheers

  (No Jeers, please. Save that for the Republicans)

  CHEERS to being halfway through my series! Three months and a little bit more to get through the other 25.

  And CHEERS to Bill in Portland, who makes it look easy. No way am I giving up my day job to imitate him full time.

  So what are YOU cheering and jeering about? Bonus points if it's about Maine.

  by AdmiralNaismith on Tue Jul 22, 2008 at 07:18:24 AM PDT

•  The Maine Factoids

  Were really cute.

  I couldn't do a column like this, so I am glad that you can do a pretty decent impression of Bill.

  by Sychotic1 on Tue Jul 22, 2008 at 07:21:39 AM PDT

•  Ummmm

  Clever -- I hope this is okay -- it is one of the few occasions that I think a Cheers and Jeers other than by BiPM or his designated surrogates might be acceptable.  Nice job (and I love your series)!

  by annetteboardman on Tue Jul 22, 2008 at 07:23:50 AM PDT

•  May I suggest 'Hearts and Farts'???

  I bet I'm not alone in feeling proprietary about our Bill's C&J, and that was before we hired the big palooka, but it's his call, of course! personally? I find it very distracting to an otherwise great diary.

  by PhillyGal on Tue Jul 22, 2008 at 07:33:04 AM PDT

  •  hearts and farts = epic suggestion

    great points, including kudos the for the diary / series.

    in that spirit, and in coughing up a shout-out to my great homestate o' maine all the way from sf, ca:

    hearts to the chunk of contiguous u.s. turf that catches the day's first rays of sun (although, depending on the time of year, the actual location varies among Cadillac Mtn. in Bar Harbor, Mt. Katahdin, and Lubec.)

    farts to susan collins. just because. i was once in an elevator with her in bangor, and rue the fact that at the time i didn't have an actual air biscuit to launch and pretend like it was hers.

    by homo neurotic on Tue Jul 22, 2008 at 08:04:09 AM PDT

  •  Obviously, I'm only doing this once.

    My normal 50-state diary titles are "Focus on...[your State here]!!!", and the format is nothing like C&J. Click on some of the 24 previous states to see what I normally do. This one here is intended as a tribute, not a usurpation. I mean, how can I not cover The Great State of Maine without reference to Kos's favorite poster boy?

    (Although if anyone's actually offended--and it never occurred to me that anyone would be--I claim parody privileges).

    To be honest, I also wanted to draw a little attention to this series. some of these states have ended up Johnny Few-Comments, and I'm getting a wee bit discouraged.  Still mostly determined to finish all 50, but maybe they won't be as thorough as they might be.

    by AdmiralNaismith on Tue Jul 22, 2008 at 08:26:15 AM PDT

    •  Oh, I did, and you do great work!

      and please dont' be discouraged!! I may have over-reacted a bit earlier, and I'm very sorry if I played any role in you getting discouraged.

      Keep on keeping on :)

      by PhillyGal on Tue Jul 22, 2008 at 08:33:26 AM PDT

•  Thank you for the kind words

  regarding Turn Maine Blue and the link to our website. It's been an interesting learning experience to be sure.

  by Spud1 on Tue Jul 22, 2008 at 08:38:22 AM PDT

•  Love it! very nice.

  I'm honored by the format.

  I just hope Tom Allen isn;t being too "nice," and that he takes his gloves off a little more.  But he's definitely within striking distance.

  Good series.

  -

  by Bill in Portland Maine on Tue Jul 22, 2008 at 09:08:48 AM PDT

  •  Dear Diary: He said, "Love it"!!!!!!

    (swoon)

    by AdmiralNaismith on Tue Jul 22, 2008 at 09:19:01 AM PDT

  •  you can love and sue at the same time

    The case against a good parody borrowing steal of the C&J format and style -- and AdmiralNaismith's diary certainly meets that criterion -- might be easier to make than it would be against something lame.

    BiPM, you must overcome your personal good will toward the diarist, and think instead about the necessity of protecting your brand.  Didn't Clausewitz say something about lawsuits being war by other means?

    :-)

    by N in Seattle on Tue Jul 22, 2008 at 09:58:59 AM PDT

•  Nu Wingland

    I love your series and am amazed at how much detail you get into for all the states. You must do a lot of research because nobody can follow politics in so many places so closely. You rock, Admiral! (also didn't you invent basketball, or something?)
     My concern/confusion: How many Democratic Senators are there in New England? With six states there could be a maximum of twelve. Currently both Maine and NH have Repubs as both Senators (which should be reduced this year) so I count only 8 Democratic Senators, six of whom are Democrats. Leahy (VT), Kennedy and Kerry (MA), Reed and Whitehouse (RI), and Dodd (CT) are all real Dems. Sanders (VT) is a progressive Independent who caucuses and votes with the Democrats. Then there is Joe "Putz" Lieberman of CT who used to be a Democrat but is now a mess. I'm just wondering about your figures...

  by Zack from the SFV on Tue Jul 22, 2008 at 03:51:37 PM PDT

  •  My figures

    I think I must have counted New York. Why the heck did I do that?

    You're right, the six states have six actual Democrats and two Independents, one good, one DINO.

    But this time next year, we'll have Shaheen and Allen for reinforcements, and I'll be right again.

    by AdmiralNaismith on Tue Jul 22, 2008 at 08:55:37 PM PDT