No one can afford to lose the race for Olympia Snowe’s Senate seat. No one.
The Republican Party is desperate to retake the United States Senate, and that is a task that becomes much harder if Maine falls into non-Republican hands. If President Obama is re-elected in November, the GOP will need both houses of Congress if it is going to move from being dissenters to driving policy. Republicans simply can’t lose.
The Democratic Party has been salivating at the chance to run for this seat in a competitive way ever since Snowe captured it. With her electoral appeal, Dems have not had a chance to field a strong candidate in 18 years. Their strongest options — Pingree and Michaud — may have taken a pass, but that doesn’t mean they’ve given up. They haven’t. Democrats do not trust Angus King any more than Republicans. They simply can’t lose.
And Angus King himself now has the hopes of an entire anti-partisan movement pinned to his success. If this reasonable, well-liked man with an epic mustache can’t get elected in the most independent-minded state in the union, than surely there is no hope for politics in this country.
The importance of this race is not only true of local state parties and organizations, but nationally as well. Maine is a phenomenally cheap date when it comes to media buying, and when you couple that with how important the seat is to everyone across the country, we can expect political advocacy to overwhelm the state this year.
And that is not good news for Mr. King.
The conventional wisdom has already formed that he is not only the early front-runner, but that he is virtually unstoppable now that Chellie Pingree has taken a pass. Well, he may be the front-runner, but he is certainly not unstoppable.
Angus King was a blank slate — a mirror for all of us — in 1994 when he was elected governor with a relatively meager 35.37 percent of the vote. Interestingly, there wasn’t a group called “the 64 percenters” out there biting at King’s ankles in his first term. But I digress.
No one really knew who King was in that election, opposition researchers didn’t have a long career in government to pour over or a lot of dirt to dig up, so he was able to capture the hopes and dreams of reasonable, pragmatic voters and convince them he was one of them. Barely.
King ran for re-election in 1998, and faced no real competition. It was the height of the 1990s economy, King was popular, times were good and no one thought they could beat him so no one tried. The result was an election campaign on cruise control in which his closest competition — Republican Jim Longley, Jr. — received 18.93 percent of the vote.
Angus King never has been significantly challenged. Not like he is about to be.
As the front-runner, King is going to be on the receiving end of most of those national and state attacks. Democratic groups are going to be out to kill King, and will likely dig up a lot of dirt on him to make him unpalatable to progressive Democrats.
There is certainly plenty there — King’s environmental positioning over the years will be troubling, for instance. He has been pro-clear cutting, pro-nuclear power and pro-industry wind. He also endorsed the reviled George W. Bush in 2000, opposed a hike in the minimum wage and has said plenty that will irritate the left.
Conservative groups also are going to go after King, and they have just as much dirt — probably more — to make him unacceptable to anyone on the right. Just bring up King’s laptop program in conservative circles today and you are still likely to see eyes roll. Then there is the fact that he used to be a Democrat, and the belief already present among Republicans that he would caucus with Harry Reid and friends once in Washington.
None of this means King will lose. What it means is that he is going to face a barrage of opposition research, negativity and attacks that he has simply never seen before. It will have an effect and his numbers will go down.
The question remains, will he fold like a cheap suit or will he survive? Only time will tell, but one thing is for sure: this is not going to be a coronation.
Matthew Gagnon, a Hampden native, is a Republican political strategist. He previously worked for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. You can reach him at matthew.o.gagnon@gmail.com and read his blog at www.pinetreepolitics.com.
There’s do no doubt that King will be facing a very nasty campaign. But the vast bulk of that (if not all of it) will come from Republicans, who don’t want to lose the seat. After the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, Democrats (like Chellie Pingree) will be loathe to do anything to let a Republican, particularly a conservative Republican, win a three way race.
This will be yet another test of Maine’s political culture and its vaunted dislike of negative politics. The Democratic party’s infamous China mailer against Cutler helped Cutler. What will happen when Republican Super-PACs and the Republican party go after King?
King 45%
Dem 30%
Rep. 25%
And what is a leech?
An organism that obtains its substanance from the essence of its host.
This definition also applies to Mr. King.
“Angus King was a blank slate — a mirror for all of us — in 1994 when he was elected governor with a relatively meager 35.37 percent of the vote. Interestingly, there wasn’t a group called “the 64 percenters” out there biting at King’s ankles in his first term. But I digress.”
Why do you digress though? It’s a ridiculous point because King didn’t assume a fringe agenda the moment he got into office. It’s not even comparible beyond the superficiality of numbers.
We will hand feed King’s opposition with every nefarious wind power action we have.
Yale University and Yale’s mysterious shell company Bayroot (King’s wind power partner), that has destroyed Maine forests like nobody else will be under the sunlight.
Vampires hate sunlight.
It won’t be only the Republicans who oppose his run to the Senate, there will also be thousands and thousands of good old hard working rural folks who are trying to preserve their property values, their familys’ health, wildlife habitat, and many other positive things from being decimated by Mr. King’s wind power developments. Mr. King has shown over and over again in these battles over new wind power projects that he’s not above using very nasty, and probably illegal, tactics in order that he and his partner Rob Gardner be allowed to build these very inefficient turbine projects almost completely funded by the same Federal tax dollars that supported Solyndra and dozens of other failed “green power” companies.
Those of us who oppose grid scale wind power development in Maine in places where these projects would dramatically reduce tourism, pose health hazzards, etc. have seen a side of Mr. King that is not at all flattering. He has demonstrated that he will do anything in his power to be able to get approval of his wind power projects so that he can rake in the hundreds of millions of dollars of our tax payer dollars in the form of stimulus money, Government back DOE loans, production tax credits, U.S. Treasury grants, special capital equipment depreciation schedules, and on and on. He’s one of the biggest wind scammers operating in Maine, and through that process has shown a complete and utter contempt for those 3rd and 4th generation farmsteaders and homeowners in this state who would be very negatively impacted by his actions and his projects.
I have been a registered Independent voter for 40 years now, and am ashamed to be linked to Mr. King by political association. VOTE “NO” for King for Senate. He has clearly shown us time and time again that he doesn’t have the common decency, ethics, moral values, or honesty to be considered for a run for dog catcher in most towns I know of.
The Dems will not even front a candidate, because splitting the liberal vote could result in another Lepage fiasco!
National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) releases negative web ad against Angus King:
http://www.dirigoblue.com/2012/03/gop-goes-negative-on-angus-king/
Angus King for president – Facebook
Crash Barry – Facebook
On a personal note: This man not only is a huge supporter of crony capitalism he also supports academics that have no idea about life in Maine. He HAD to get loan guarantees before he would stat Record Hill. If the project was so good why d…id it need a “guarantee,” of any sort? his wind company, First Wind is supported in part by Harvard University. Does someone, anyone from Harvard know more about your life than you do? That is what they want you to believe. Wind is good is what they are chanting! There is nothing wrong with trying to better oneself by learning. But when they “TELL,” you MUST believe in wind or you are an anti Earth person and want rivers and stream polluted, the atmosphere to bun up or om such is just plain nonsense. The old believe what I do or you are a demon or evil. I’ve known Alice for some time and last I knew she is neither evil or demon. She is actually for The Earth. But she like those that are informed know the hidden (now becoming more open)_ costs of BIG wind and people like Angus King who feel you are demons for going against them. This rings right down the line of Al Gore and Global Warming. He knew the common idea was global cooling and yet said warming. Say ANYTHING against his view and he will vilify you until the last molecule of CO2 burns away. NEVER once to tell you CO2 is food for all plant life. Without it there will be no OYXGEN! How dumb! Do your research and do NOT fall into their game/ King also aid the Record Hill turbines will spin around 4 RPM’s. Either he is DUMB or a downright liar. They were spinning between 15 & 20 RPM today just before noon. I didn’t have a stop watch on them, but it took between 3 1/2 to 4 seconds for them to make ONE revolution. Do the math. Pretty close.
Angus King is the poster child for everything that’s wrong with politics and government today.
He is totally out for himself. Based on his behavior over the years I seriously question his ethics and morals.
Who can beat him? The mob, when voting, can go for name recognition without realizing it. Maybe Bennett can do some hard campaigning and offer a choice. God help us.