PORTLAND, Maine — The city of Portland will be paid nearly $5,000 by Democrat Mike Michaud’s gubernatorial campaign for Tuesday night’s visit by former President Bill Clinton.
Jessica Grondin, spokeswoman for the city of Portland, said the city charged Michaud $4,950 for use of the Portland Exposition building, where Clinton is scheduled to speak Tuesday evening in support of the six-term congressman and Blaine House hopeful.
That price is the city’s standard fee for a full-day rental of the building by a nonprofit organization, she said, and it covers access to the building as well as help from city workers to set up staging and other facility maintenance in relation to the visit.
Grondin said the Portland Police Department will have additional officers working during the event, but not nearly as many as the 100-plus officers who can be called in to work during the visit of a sitting U.S. president.
When President Barack Obama came to Portland for a campaign fundraiser in 2012, he did not use — nor, as a result, pay for — the use of a city-owned facility. His visit did, however, cost the city $21,000 in overtime costs for police, an amount which was not reimbursed by the White House or the president’s re-election campaign.
Unlike the Obama visit, Tuesday night’s appearance by Clinton will not necessitate the closures of any roads, nor motorcade escorts, Grondin said. Clinton, who served as president between 1993-2001, is coming to Portland to campaign for Michaud.
Michaud is locked in a tough, three-way battle for the Blaine House against incumbent Republican Gov. Paul LePage and independent Eliot Cutler, whose campaigns brushed off the high-profile visit as a replay of 2010, when visits to Maine by Clinton failed to propel then-Democratic gubernatorial candidate Libby Mitchell to victory.
Clinton’s visit comes at a time when most polls show Michaud in a virtual dead heat with LePage. Cutler, who finished a close second to LePage in 2010, trails Michaud and LePage by wide margins in public polling.
LePage has benefited from two campaign visits this summer by high-profile Republican Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey as the Maine race has ramped up.
Cutler last month received the endorsement of independent U.S. Sen. Angus King, the popular former Maine governor.
Clinton remained popular in the polls during his two terms in the White House despite allegations of several romantic affairs and an impeachment by Congress for lying under oath about one of them.
He came to Southern Maine Community College and the Lewiston Armory in separate visits in 2010 to raise support for Mitchell, who ultimately finished a distant third behind LePage and Cutler in a five-person race.
BDN State House Bureau Chief Christopher Cousins contributed to this story.
