"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."
Rosa Scarcelli has launched her first TV ad, and with the attacks on "career politicians" and the claim that Augusta's current leaders are on the side of "special interests" rather than working families, it looks a lot more like something a Republican would run than a Democrat.
Scarcelli had very little cash on hand as of the last reporting period, so if she's putting much money behind this ad, it's likely her own personal funds. We probably won't know for sure until the campaign's next finance report on May 28.
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."
Al Diamon gave the site a mention in his column this week, in which he notes the unique clean elections conflict facing gubernatorial candidate and Senate President Libby Mitchell.
Mitchell dispatched her husband to address the state ethics commission. According to an account in the Bangor Daily News, Jim Mitchell warned commissioners that with seven gubernatorial hopefuls seeking "clean" cash, "You may have no money for the general election."
This could place Mitchell (him, not her) in the conflicted position of begging the ethics commission to find extra cash – either by asking the Legislature to send over a few bagfuls or by allowing publicly financed candidates to raise some money privately – at the same time that Mitchell (her, not him) is busy in her role as a senator cutting funding for starving street urchins in order to cover the state’s massive fiscal shortfall.
One interesting bit that didn't make it into my column today is Cutler's opinion towards the Clean Elections act. While he plans to run a privately-financed campaign, he promised that he wouldn't be attacking his opponents for accepting public financing.
I've actually been asking all of the candidates I've spoken to, both clean and traditionally-financed, whether they plan to make it a campaign issue.
Democrat Rosa Scarcelli has had the most nuanced opinion on the subject so far. She says she supports clean elections for legislative races, but strongly opposes using the system for a state-wide race under current economic conditions.
She also pledged not to "fault" her opponents for using clean election funds.
Here's the relevant recorded audio from our conversation:
In recent media coverage on the viability of the fund, Scarcelli has been one of the most vocal opponents of public financing. Here's her quote from MPBN:
"What we're seeing now is that lots and lots of people are getting into the race that don't have the capacity of the desire to raise and finance their own campaigns with their own supporters," says Democrat Rosa Scarcelli of Portland, who is staging a privately-funded campaign. She says she opposes the idea of allowing more private money into publicly-funded campaigns.
"I believe that if we have Clean Election funds and we start to change the rules mid-cycle, we're doing a disservice to the Maine people, who probably as they pay attention to this, will find it troubling that we're paying for funding for campaigns, rather than paying for programs, when we're going to cut another $400 million out of our budget in this emergency session," Scarcelli says.
I'm not sure if that can be considered faulting her opponents, but it's certainly coming close.
It will be interesting how this issue shapes up as the legislature and the ethics commission continue to discuss how to deal with a clean elections fund that has been raided over and over again in order to balance previous budgets and may not have enough money left to make it through the 2010 campaign.
For progressives, myself included, the clean elections system that was passed by state-wide referendum in 1996 is now considered a touchstone of a strong local democracy, our Maine tradition of citizen legislators, and our hopes for people-centered policy.
But will these high-minded ideals take a back seat to immediate economic concerns?
I hope not, especially considering that even scrapping clean elections entirely right this moment and draining the entire fund would only close about 1% of the current budget gap.
Elizabeth Mitchell's campaign has released a poll showing the Maine Senate President trouncing three potential Democratic opponents in the June 2010 primary election.
When asked who they would vote for if the election were held tomorrow between Mitchell, Steve Rowe, Patrick McGowan and Dawn Hill, 37% chose Mitchell, 20% Rowe, 10% McGowan, and 3% Hill.
In a head-to-head match up, Mitchell beats Rowe 46% to 24%.
According to campaign volunteer Jodi Quintero, the poll is independent and was conducted before Mitchell entered the race by research firm Kiley and Company. Mitchell was then approached by the firm and chose to purchase certain questions from the survey for release.
The firm interviewed 301 Maine Democratic Primary voters (a relatively small sample size) on July 21-22, 2009. No other methodological information is given. Rosa Scarcelli, John Richardson and other current and potential Democratic candidates were not included in the poll.
Daily Kos/Research 2000 also released a Maine poll today showing every Democratic candidate polled beating every Republican, except for a match up between Steve Rowe and Les Otten, where Otten edges Rowe by 1%.
The 
