Quote of the day:

"I'll make one bold prediction: Rosa Scarcelli will have the best hospitality suite, by far."
                                                                              -Dennis Bailey at Dirigo Blue

And and an assessment of Scarcelli's campaigning ability:

"I'll be honest. When she first decided to begin this endeavor many moons ago, I had my doubts. Only because I've worked with several candidates who were convinced they should be the next governor, congressman, senator, whatever, only to discover after just a few weeks on the campaign trail their blood pressure just couldn't take it. They found out the hard way that the skills you need for governing are a far cry from the skills required for campaigning. Only rarely do you find the two talents in one package. Angus King, for one, but even he would admit that he didn't know that going in. He found out much later that not only did he like campaigning, he was good at it.

"And so is Rosa. I know, I'm on her campaign and she pays me, but I'm telling you. I have seen very few candidates rise to the occasion as she has. I've seen her walk into rooms filled with cold-hearted skeptics only to leave behind a room full of true believers."

The latest article on the gubernatorial race from the Center for Public Interest Reporting is on Democratic candidate Rosa Scarcelli and lacks the fascinating revelations seen in some of their previous pieces. There's nothing that holds a candle to their description of the cratering of Les Otten's American Skiing Company or their expose on a patronage appointment within John Richardson's Department of Economic and Community Development.

Instead, the piece is a competent and meticulous rebuttal of Scarcelli's campaign themes of political independence and business acumen. It also probes several areas of potential weakness for the candidate and finds some dirt, but nothing too damaging.

Al Diamon writes that the piece is the first to give details about her relationship with her mother, controversial and politically-connected developer Pamela Gleichman, but while that's important, it's not exactly new information and was widely known in Democratic circles.

One line in the article, however, if accurate, would be big news:

Scarcelli has also received consulting help from top Democratic party operatives, including Ricky Arriola of Miami, who is working for the Democratic National Committee on just three campaigns this year — Scarcelli’s is one of them.

If Arriola were working for the DNC on Scarcelli's campaign, it would mean the national party has involved itself in a contested primary and would be a huge deal.

According to Scarcelli campaign spokesperson Dennis Bailey, however, the report is inaccurate.

They know each other as Crown Fellows, Ricky is a donor, a strong supporter and has helped Rosa organize a few fundraisers in a volunteer capacity. He is not assisting the campaign in any official way, nor have we ever said anything to the contrary.

McCue needs to answer for herself where she got her information. I’m not even sure that Ricky is connected with the DNC. I know he got an arts commission appointment or some such thing.

Update: According to John Christie at CPIR, the information on Arriola came from this profile of the Florida businessman. Here's the original line from the piece, which seems to have been a bit mangled in translation:

He’s also now an active member of the Democratic National Committee, working on three campaigns: Alex Sink, for Florida Governor, Rosa Scarcelli for Governor of Maine and Alexi Giannoulias of Illinois for the U.S. Senate.

In related news, a previous subject of an article by the Center, Anthony Monfiletto, resigned from his post on the Maine Workers' Compensation Board today.

The race to the Blaine House is heating up. Here's some gubernatorial errata from today:

Clean Sweep:

Today at 5pm is the deadline to qualify for clean elections funding by submitting 3,250 $5 contributions and proof of $40,000 raised in seed money. Mills, Mitchell and McGowan have all said they've already met the requirements, leaving John Richardson as the odd man out. Watch for a release from his campaign today.

Union-Made:

Speaking of Richardson, the campaign can't have been helped by the story in Maine newspapers yesterday penned by the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting about a patronage appointment within the DECD.

Also, the candidate's son, also named John Richardson, writes in to answer the button question: "Dad's been using that style since his first campaign signs in the late 90's. I'm not sure if he was choosing to invoke an emotional connection to Brennan, knowing him, I'm guessing he just liked the color scheme."

Unity of One:

Rosa Scarcelli sent out a release earlier this week asking her Democratic competitors to join her in a unity press conference ahead of Obama's visit today. According to spokesperson Dennis Bailey, none of them responded. "We'll do it anyway," says Bailey. "Unity of one."

Not Too Offended:

Matt Jacobson sent out a letter yesterday attacking Maine's clean election system in general and fellow Republican candidate Peter Mills specifically for running a publicly-funded campaign.

"I'm offended, and I know that you are too," wrote Jacobson.

I asked Jacobson campaign manager Bill Becker if his candidate's disapproval extended to the Republican legislative candidates running clean and if he would also be publicly asking them to refrain from using the clean elections system (71% of Republicans ran clean in 2008).

Jacobson's response:

"I expect a higher standard of leadership from gubernatorial candidates. While I would hope the financial circumstances we are experiencing would inspire all candidates to raise their own money, people aspiring to Maine's highest office have an obligation to lead and set an example. Maine's four "Clean Elections" gubernatorial candidates may well receive more than $2.4M in taxpayer dollars - just in the primary. For that amount of money, the state could certainly fund greater priorities than to buy bumper stickers and lawn signs.

"As Governor, I would have line-item vetoeed that expense this year."

Translation: "No"

Political veteran Dennis Bailey thinks that Maine's media is missing an important point in the discussion of Snowe and Collins' bipartisanship.

"the reason that Snowe and Collins can support the stimulus bill while their Republican colleagues can’t is because most members of Congress face strong, right-wing opposition back in their districts and could face serious opponents for their jobs if they backed the president. Re-election, after all, is the one thing that really gets the attention of a member of Congress.

On the other hand, Maine’s right wing-nut GOP faction is no threat at all to Snowe and Collins. It’s a noisy but flaccid group who have no influence in statewide elections. There are plenty GOP senators and congressman who are jealous of Snowe’s and Collins’ invulnerability and would have otherwise supported the stimulus."

Dennis Bailey settles some scores on his blog today, criticizing the methods and results of the Critical Insights research firm, which worked with the pro-casino side on Question 2. He also faults the press for failing to question the firm's results.

Critical Insights fared poorly in my recent ranking of Maine pollsters, coming in last place of all the independent polls taken in Maine in the month before the election.

Dennis Bailey took a break from running CasinosNo! recently to offer Rep. Tom Allen some advice on his blog on how he should have handled the attendance issue.

As a former college football player, Tom should know you can’t score on defense. Here’s what he should have said:

"Yea, I missed some votes. There were times I had to care for dying parents and be with my wife who was suffering from health problems. Maybe Susan can’t but Maine people can certainly understand that. But you know what? Maine and this country would have been a lot better off if Susan Collins had missed a few votes, like her vote to give tax breaks to the very wealthy instead of Maine people; like her vote that got us into the Iraq War that has cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives; like her vote to (insert outrage here). On the votes that really matter, it would have been better for all of us if Susan Collins had taken the day off."

Allen is closing the race with an attack highlighting Collins' broken term-limits pledge.

Update: The Bangor Daily News has some (fashion) advice for Bailey, who they label as the state's worst-dressed politico.

The Pro-Casino Campaign has released a new ad attacking CasinosNo! spokesman Dennis Bailey for comments he supposedly made at a "Rising Tides" (I assume they mean A Rising Tide) training seminar.

The ad claims the group has a tape of the event, although only a transcript of the exchange is available on their website and no audio is played during the ad. The ad highlights the following quote from Bailey discussing how his group won the last casino referendum as an example of him admitting to scaring voters:

"Fear always overcomes common sense, always. Casinos talk about millions of dollars a year and then we come along and say there's crime, prostitution, whatever."

I imagine in a few months, at another training seminar, Bailey will be discussing how he won this election by annoying the opposition until they focused their time and energy on him instead of winning the vote.

This ad comes on the heels of a controversy about one of the group's other recent ads.

As Las Vegas money allows the pro-casino side to take to the airwaves, CasinosNo! has responded by taking to the internet, with a youtube video highlighting some of the more unattractive parts of the referendum.

It's not a high-quality video and the soundtrack is some kind of muted reverb, but it gets the point across, and the bill itself may be bad enough that it won't take a high-powered media campaign to defeat it. Still, I hope this isn't the best the "no people" have to offer.

Dennis Bailey, executive director of CasinosNo!, has taken aim straight at pro-casino spokesperson and Green Party stalwart Pat LaMarche with a new recurring feature on the group's website "The Daily Pat Down," which will be used to respond to her public statements.

Susan Cover reports that LaMarche says bring it on, asserting that "we're more than happy to go source for source with what we've got."

Seth Carey, the ethically-challenged lawyer, is no longer head of the Oxford County casino referendum effort. He's been bought out by a Vegas firm that will likely dump a ton of money into the election. Pat LaMarche is back on as spokesperson for the effort.

The referendum itself remains as pernicious as ever. Its wording would give the casino company a monopoly over gambling in the state and the group's president a seat on several state boards overseeing everything from health care efforts to education. I hope Dennis Bailey and CasinosNo! are ready for their two-front fight.

Maine public relations specialist Dennis Bailey gives an interesting assessment of the McCain campaign's VP roll-out.

I wonder what he would think of Charlie Summer's PR wisdom in choosing to list Richard Nixon as one of his favorite politicians.