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MAINE COMPASS: Ethnicity, gender issues make 2010 an election for history books

Both major political parties made history in June in the primary elections for governor: The Republicans nominated their first Franco-American, and the Democrats chose their first female.

Though the canvas on which this year’s race for the Blaine House is painted also includes three independents, the robust competition culminating in the primary is woven on a tapestry that belongs — at least for now — to the two major parties.

To be sure, the Democrats’ nomination of Libby Mitchell is not the first time a major party in Maine has nominated a woman to run for governor. Susan Collins won the Republican primary in 1994, besting three other women and four men, although she lost the general election to Angus King.

Despite the tendency of women to be more partial to Democratic candidates than men in their recent voting patterns, more Maine Republican women than Democrats have actually competed for a party’s nomination for governor. Five GOP women have done so since Sherry Huber became the first in her party in 1982, while only three Democrats, beginning with Georgette Berube, also in 1982, have done the same.

Maine has long been in the forefront of affording women a place at the political table. Maine first sent Margaret Chase Smith to Washington in 1940, the same year Helen Knudsen became the first Maine woman to appear on the ballot for governor, albeit as a minor party candidate. In 2008, Maine became the first state in which a majority of its congressional delegation was composed of women.

Likewise, the Republican choice of Paul LePage is not the only time a major party has nominated a Franco-American for governor.

The Democrats have named four of them, but the last such occasion was 62 years ago, when Biddeford Mayor Louis Lausier won his party’s nomination. Lausier, however, lost in a landslide to Frederick Payne in the 1948 general election. The Democrats were not a major force in Maine’s political destiny at the time, even though Franco-Americans were among the party’s foremost leaders.

Ethnically, the state’s electorate has been hospitable to other minorities. A Greek-American has held major political office in Maine for 40 of the last 44 years.  Portland’s Peter Kyros was first elected in 1966 to four terms as a congressman, and Olympia Snowe, first a congresswoman in 1979, became a senator in 1995.

Not to be overlooked is Gov. John Baldacci, whose proud Italian and Lebanese roots have made him the first Blaine House occupant of either group. His main opponent in his first election as governor eight years ago, Peter Cianchette, was also of Italian-American ancestry.

No one in the state’s largest ethnic minority, the 23 percent in the 2000 census identifying itself as either French or French-Canadian, however, has ever won the popular vote in a statewide election.

Lucia Cormier of Rumford is the only Franco-American woman who was a major party nominee for statewide office. Cormer, who was Smith’s Democratic opponent in 1960, garnered 38 percent of the vote as Mainers sent Smith to the Senate for her third term.

A Franco-American, however, has served as Maine’s governor. In 1879, Lewiston’s Alonzo Garcelon served a one-year term, after being chosen by the state Legislature. Garcelon had received just 22 percent of the popular vote, which gave him a third-place finish. Maine law then — as Vermont does now — required a legislative election when no candidate achieved a majority.

If Maine still had such a system, seven of the last nine gubernatorial elections would have been determined by the Legislature, a process that likely would have denied the Blaine House to independents Jim Longley and Angus King. )

Looking at the entirety of Maine’s political history, then, 2010 is the first year that both a Franco-American and a woman have faced off as major party nominees in the same gubernatorial election.

Though the three independents, Eliot Cutler, Shawn Moody and Kevin Scott, no doubt will have their day in the sun, the ethnic identification of the Republican nominee and the gender dimension of the Democratic nominee will continue to command attention and interest in what promises to be a fascinating election.   



Paul H. Mills is a Farmington attorney known for his analyses and historical understanding of Maine’s political scene. He can be reached by e-mail: pmills@midmai ne.com.

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