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Poliquin on the road delivering his message

Republican logs many miles on campaign trail

By Ethan Wilensky-Lanford ewlanford@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

ELLSWORTH -- In the final days of the primary campaign, Bruce Poliquin has taken to the road.

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CAMPAIGNING: GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Poliquin, right, talks on his cell phone aboard his campaign bus on Thursday. Campaign volunteer John Bouchard is at left.

Staff photo by Ethan Wilensky-Lanford

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Thursday, he woke up at 4:30 a.m. to meet and greet workers at Bath Iron Works at 6:45. He had a television interview planned in Presque Isle at night, along with stops at six towns in between.

"Nobody's gonna outwork Bruce," said Bill Boeschenstein, Poliquin's friend since high school who has been volunteering for his campaign.

After breakfast at Moody's Diner in Waldoboro, Jeff Evangelos drove his pickup up to Poliquin's RV to thank him for running an attack ad against fellow Republican gubernatorial candidate Les Otten.

Evangelos, a former Democratic candidate for the Maine Legislature, called Otten a "one-man wrecking ball."

Besides their evident dislike of Otten, the two seemed to strike a chord on their distaste for incumbents and passionate disgust for the economic status quo.

"There is no solution to this anymore, because the demand side of the economy is gone," said Evangelos, his voice rising. "It's going down."

"Don't get negative on me," said Poliquin.

About an hour and a half later, Poliquin was leading the charge out of the bus during a wet spell in foggy Rockland.

"Ah, this is a great day in Maine, guys!" the former coach said to the four members of his campaign team riding with him in the van, putting on a game face and beaming in the drizzle under a red raincoat.

Between stops, he called voters from lists he divided into supporters, probable supporters, potential supporters who share Poliquin's concerns, and undecideds.

"He could have gotten us over the top," Poliquin declared after hanging up on one such call he had while rolling down U.S. Route 1. He had spoken with a 25-year veteran of the Department of Corrections, who said he wanted to see a leader who would hold state government accountable, he said.

A short while later, Poliquin again picked up the phone.

"As you know now, we have five days left until D-Day," he said, leaving a voicemail. "We're gonna fix this thing when we win this thing, but we've got to get people to the polls."

Poliquin said his campaign's polling shows him tied with Otten and Sen. Peter Mills for the Republican nomination.

He said he is confident he will win, because he thinks that he has presented himself as the only fiscal conservative in the race with private-sector knowledge from a career spent as a executive, managing pension investments; and an entrepreneur, developing real estate.

Moreover, he said, his is the only organization with the "ground game" to get out the vote.

"We are making tens and tens and tens of thousands of phone calls every week, and we are knocking on thousands and thousands of doors," he said. "We are demonstrating that we are the hardest working campaign on either side."

In the past 15 months, Poliquin said, he's traveled 40,000 miles around the state.

Many of the people he met Thursday were registered as Democrats or not enrolled in a party.

But that didn't stop Poliquin from stopping to chat. He said he expected some voters to register Republican leading up to the primary, although official records indicate that, even during during the 2008 presidential-year primary, only a few thousand people did this.

"I don't really look at our problems as being Republican and Democratic," he told Beverly Stone and Sheryl Tripp at The Working Art gallery on Main Street in Belfast. "They're economic, fiscal, and (about) jobs."

Stone rattled off questions for the candidate, and before long asked him if he planned to run the government like a business.

"That's a good way to put it," Poliquin said.

"The older I get, the less I pussyfoot around," she said, a few minutes later. "Let's see you take a pay cut when you get there."

"How about no pay at all?" Poliquin replied.

After he left the store, Stone, who is not enrolled in a party, said she probably wouldn't vote in the primary.

Poliquin was the first candidate for state office who had ever approached her in Belfast, she said, and, although it would take more than quick chat to capture her vote, she appreciated his effort.

"Most of them have a little town meeting that I need to make an effort for," she said. "He's running a different type of campaign."

Meanwhile, Poliquin and his team drove on.

Ethan Wilensky-Lanford -- 620-7016

ewlanford@mainetoday.com