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Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine, speaks during the Common Cause news conference in the Cannon House Office Building.

Democratic Rep. Michael Michaud of Maine is taking steps to run for governor next year, underscoring his party’s commitment to unseating incumbent Republican Paul LePage.

Michaud, a House member since 2003, announced today that he has created a gubernatorial “exploratory committee,” which usually is a forerunner to a full-fledged campaign.

“During the last few months, I’ve been deeply honored by the countless Mainers across the state — Democrats, Republicans and independents alike — who have asked me to consider a run for governor,” Michaud, 58, said in a video on his campaign website.

http://www.michaud2014.com/

“I’ve listened, and I heard their frustrations and concerns about the lack of real leadership in our state,” Michaud said. “That’s why today I’m forming an exploratory committee to better gauge the depth of support for a possible campaign to be your next governor.”

LePage was elected governor in 2010 with 38 percent of the vote, defeating independent Eliot Cutler, who got 36 percent, Democrat Libby Mitchell (18 percent). LePage is seeking re-election in a state that last year backed President Barack Obama over Republican Mitt Romney by 56 percent to 41 percent.

A Michaud gubernatorial bid would leave open his 2^nd District, which covers about 90 percent of the state, including the cities of Bangor and Lewiston and substantial rural territory. At 27,557 square miles in land area, Maine’s 2nd is the biggest district wholly east of the Mississippi River and is larger than Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island combined.

Maine’s 2nd is more politically competitive than the state’s other district, the Portland-based 1st. The 2^nd District backed Obama over Romney by 53 percent to 44 percent, according to data compiled by Political Capital. In the campaign’s final days, a pro-Romney super-political action committee aired television ads in northern Maine in an attempt to deliver Romney the electoral vote assigned to the 2^nd District.

Original post is Maine’s Michaud Eying Bid for Governor by Political Capital.

Photograph by Karen Bleier/AFP via Getty Images

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-ME, arrives at the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on November 15, 2012.

Olympia Snowe, the moderate Maine Republican who retired from the Senate five months ago, already is out with a book detailing some changes she would make to curb the partisanship and polarization she says have consumed Congress.

In “Fighting for Common Ground,” Snowe writes that the Senate “has come to resemble the House, where tactics like utilizing rules and prerogatives to maximum political advantage or to make a point are more common.”

Snowe, who served 16 years in the House and 18 years in the Senate, would make changes to the filibuster process beyond what the Senate adopted early this year. She’d withhold congressional pay if annual appropriations bills aren’t enacted on time, adopt a biennial budget process and create a bipartisan congressional leadership committee on which high-ranking Democrats and Republicans would discuss legislation with the president.

Pro-Republican for much of the post-Civil War period, the six-state New England region today has zero Republicans among its 21 House members and two Republicans among 12 senators.

She’d open up primary elections to allow more participation by independent voters. She says commissions probably would do a better job than partisan state legislators in redrawing congressional districts that would elect more centrists.

Snowe bemoans the losses of compromise-minded Republicans in Senate primary elections, including Rep. Michael Castle of Delaware in 2010 and Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana in 2012. Democrats won both seats over flawed Republican nominees.

“Achieving a governing majority and insisting on ideological purity are mutually exclusive objectives,” Snowe writes. The Republican Party “drifted away from the mainstream” during her 34-year tenure in Congress, she said, and she left this year “very concerned about the direction the party was headed.”

Some other nuggets from Snowe’s book:

In 1986, she tried to convince Condoleezza Rice, then a Stanford University academic, to run for Congress. “I told her she was dynamite — everything wrapped in one package. But she decided against it,” Snowe writes.

Snowe lost her mother at eight, her father at nine, her first husband at 26 and a 20-year-old stepson in 1991.

“Being orphaned at the age of nine forced me to become an extremely self-sufficient little girl and undoubtedly formed the way I look at the world,” she writes. “I believe in individual responsibility and the notion that you do what you can for yourself. My concept of government’s role in people’s lives is that it is limited but legitimate, and essential when people have nowhere else to turn.”

As Snowe grieved the death of Peter Snowe, to whom she was married from 1969 until his 1973 death in an automobile accident, she says, her thoughts “naturally gravitated to those others who shared similar tribulations. It occurred to me, what do other young widows do, especially those who have children?”

“This realization became the driving force behind my early legislative focus in Congress and fueled my sense of responsibility to champion issues of importance to women.”

Original post is Snowe: Finding ‘Common Ground’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Senators Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman hold a press conference on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine is part of an endangered species: A New England Republican serving in Congress.

There’s just two of them among the 33 Senate and House members representing the region’s six states — Collins and Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. Ayotte, swept into office in the 2010 Republican wave, won’t face voters again until 2016. Collins, first elected in 1996 — a time when it wasn’t quite so lonely for her party in her neck of the Maine woods – is up for a fourth term next year.

A lesser politician might already be exploring second careers. But Collins begins the campaign cycle a strong favorite for re-election, and an Associated Press story this week summing up her current stands on hot-button issues offered — in a single paragraph — ample evidence of her adroitness:

“She calls herself `a champion’ on equal rights for gays and lesbians but doesn’t openly support gay marriage. She favors changes to the nation’s immigration system but so far declines to endorse a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who live in the country illegally. And she wants to crack down on illegal gun trafficking, but warns that universal background checks might impose unnecessary burdens on some gun owners.”

Talk about threading the political needle.

Of course, some might call it dodging hard choices.

Regardless, it works for Collins, 60.

As Mike Cuzzi, a Maine Democratic strategist, recently told the National Journal, Collins’ constituents “appreciate” that she “is more of a pragmatic Republican and a little more centrist than the majority of her party.”

As that one paragraph makes so clear.

Original post is Maine’s Susan Collins Hones Formula for Political Survival by Political Capital.

Photograph by Jin Lee/Bloomberg

Rachel Baker, left, and Christine Tully wait in line to get their marriage license at the Manhattan City Clerk's office in New York.

First, voters in Maine, Maryland and Washington state legalized same-sex marriage in November. Now comes a new poll  showing strong support for that nationwide.

The survey by Hamden, Connecticut-based Quinnipiac University found 48 percent of U.S. voters supporting same-sex marriage, with 46 percent opposing it. In 2008, Quinnipiac’s polling  showed 55 percent opposing same-sex marriage against 36 percent approval.

“It seems pretty clear that attitudes toward same-sex marriage in American society are changing rapidly,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of Quinnipiac’s polling institute. “While the country remains split on the issue, supporters have come pretty far in the last four years.”

The nation may not be split too much longer, as younger voters are more supportive than their parents.

Quinnipiac found 63 percent of voters aged 18 to 29 backing same-sex marriage.

Original post is Same-Sex Marriage Gains Support by Political Capital.

Sen.-elect Angus King, I-Maine, center, the former governor of Maine, arrives on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Nov. 13, 2012. Photograph by Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

Senator-elect Angus King of Maine, elected as an independent, says he will caucus with the Democrats.

That will give the Senate’s Democrats a 55-45 edge over Republicans when they convene a new session of Congress in January.

King, announcing his stance in Washington this morning, said he also hopes to act as a bridge between the parties.

Original post is King of the Caucus: Democratic by Political Capital.

Independent Senator-elect Angus King from Maine. Photograph by Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo

Senator-elect Angus King of Maine says probably will decide which party to caucus with in time to vote in tomorrow’s congressional leadership elections.

“I will probably have some comment for you some time tomorrow,” King, an independent who beat a Republican and a Democrat to replace retiring Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, told reporters today.

King, a former governor who met this morning with Maine’s other Republican senator, Susan Collins, on Capitol Hill, said his decision would not amount to ” building a wall between myself and the other party,”

“Whichever decision I make, I am not declaring opposition or inability to work with or unwillingness to work with members of the other party,” he said.

Members of both parties have said they expect King to caucus with Democrats, who retained their Senate majority in last week’s election and will control 55 seats if King joins their caucus.

Still, Collins said she hoped King would align himself with Republicans.

“But regardless, I am confident that he will not be an automatic vote for either caucus and instead will look at the issues on their merits and will attempt to reach across the aisle regardless of which side of the aisle he’s sitting on,” she said.

Original post is King’s Caucus Call: Tomorrow by Political Capital.

Photograph by Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo

Maine independent Senate candidate Angus King speaks at a news conference in Brunswick, Maine.

Angus King thinks the U.S. Senate has no concept of time.

In his newest Senate campaign commercial, the independent ex-governor of Maine holds up a clock that reads 8:00, telling viewers that the half of the Senate would read it as 2:00 and the other half would say 4:30.

“Arguing about everything is why nothing gets done,” King says to the camera, adding that Congress has enacted a budget and all of the regular appropriations bills just four times in the past 30 years.

King says members of Congress shouldn’t get paid if they don’t pass a budget.

“You know what time it is really — it’s time for a change,” he says in the ad, which began running this morning in Portland, according to Kantar Media’s CMAG.

King leads in polls in the race to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe, though his early big advantage has shrunk somewhat after attacks from Republican groups supporting Maine Secretary of State Charlie Summers. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has attacked Summers and ignored Democratic state senator Cynthia Dill, who’s running a distant third in the polls. King is expected to caucus with Democrats if he wins the Nov. 6 election.

Original post is Angus King’s Recipe for Congress: No Budget, No Salary by Political Capital.

Photograph by Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo

Maine independent Senate candidate Angus King speaks at a news conference in Brunswick, Maine.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has decided to spend $410,000 on a television ad campaign against Republican candidate Charlie Summers in Maine.

The ads are scheduled to run Oct. 2-12. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has already funded ads in that campaign to undermine front-runner Angus King, a former Maine governor who is running as an independent. King is in a three-way race with Summers and Cynthia Dill, the Democratic candidate, who is trailing both the independent and the Republican. The Republicans have tried a tactic in which they praise Dill in order to boost her standing and erode King’s lead.

“When Republican extremism forced Olympia Snowe to retire from the Senate, it presented a significant challenge to Mitch McConnell and the Republicans, ” DSCC executive director Guy Cecil said in a statement. “Charlie Summers is an anti-choice Tea Partier, who supports eliminating the Department of Education, privatizing Social Security, protecting tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas, and ending Medicare as we know it. Charlie Summers should not be in the United States Senate and it is time every Mainer knows it.”

The Democrats find themselves in an awkward position.

Party leaders have not endorsed and funded Dill’s campaign, while at the same time hoping that King would caucus with the Democrats once elected to the Senate. King has refused to state which party he would choose to caucus with. King has endorsed the reelection of President Barack Obama and has been in Washington at fundraisers organized by Democratic lobbyists on his behalf.

Original post is Democrats Invest in Maine, Independent King Backing Obama by Political Capital.

Photograph by Will Seberger/Zuma Press

Gabrielle Giffords with Rob Barber at the Pima County Democrat HQ in Tucson two days before Barber squares off against J. Kelly to determine who will fill the seat vacated by Giffords in January.

The congressional primary season is in full swing, continuing today with intraparty voting in six states. Maine, Nevada, Virginia, South Carolina and North Dakota have primaries and Arkansas is holding runoff elections three weeks after its first-round primaries.

The biggest race today, though, is a special election in the Arizona congressional district that Democrat Gabrielle Giffords vacated in January, one year after sustaining serious injuries in a Tucson shooting. The contestants are Democrat Ron Barber, a longtime aide to Giffords who was wounded in the shooting, and Republican Jesse Kelly, who almost beat her in the 2010 election.

Polling stations close at 10 p.m. eastern time. The district is one of three without an incumbent in the House, where Republicans have 242 seats and Democrats control 190 seats.

In Maine, six Republicans and four Democrats are vying to succeed retiring Republican Senator Olympia Snowe. The major-party candidates will start as underdogs against Angus King, a political independent who served as governor from 1995 to 2003.

In South Carolina, there’s a nine-candidate Republican primary in the new 7^th District in and around Myrtle Beach, and the winner will be favored to capture the seat in November. If no candidate wins a majority of the vote, the top two finishers will compete in a June 26 runoff. South Carolina was awarded a new district after above-average population growth in the past decade.

Original post is Arizona Special Election Tops Tuesday Voting by Political Capital.

Photograph by Pete Marovich/Zuma Press

Senators Joe Lieberman, left, and John Cornyn before a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

John Cornyn, the Texas U.S. senator overseeing Republican strategy in Senate races, seems to like a lot of the Republicans seeking a seat in Maine that could determine control of the Senate.

Five of them, to be exact. Cornyn’s leadership political action committee, Alamo PAC, donated $5,000 each to five of the six Republicans who are vying to succeed retiring Republican Olympia Snowe, according to a filing Alamo PAC made yesterday with the Federal Election Commission.

The fortunate five are state senator Debra Plowman, former state senator Richard Bennett, state Treasurer Bruce Poliquin, Attorney General William Schneider and Secretary of State Charlie Summers.

Left out: Scott D’Amboise, a former town selectman and Tea Party activist who was challenging Snowe when she unexpectedly announced her retirement in February.

Maine voted Democratic in the past five presidential elections, giving 58 percent of its votes to President Barack Obama in the 2008 election, and so it will be difficult for the Republicans to win the seat without the popular Snowe defending it. The Democrats may not win it either: the early favorite to win the seat may be Angus King, a political independent and a popular Maine governor from 1995 to 2003.

Original post is Senate Republican Campaign Chief Aids (Almost) All Seeking Maine Seat by Political Capital.