Assisted political suicide, continued

by Lance Tapley

The last moniker most political observers would apply to Mark Lawrence is bold. A centrist, he is not known for fiery initiatives in the State House, his activism smoldering well in the background to the legislative bonfires lit by his liberal Democratic colleague Sen. Chellie Pingree, the majority leader. The press refers to Lawrence as soft-spoken and a consensus-builder. In other words, he is, well, rather dull. (On the other hand, he is patient and considerate. He pauses to allow a reporter to catch up while taking notes.)

In an interview the one subject he became animated on was an attempt to rebut the idea that sacrificial lambs have no future in Maine politics. He referred to Collins's and Mitchell's successes after previous defeats. If he loses, Lawrence claims, "absolutely" his political future is still open.

Peter Chandler, his 28-year-old campaign manager, sounds positively sanguine about the future, specifically bringing up the possibility of Lawrence running for Congress if Tom Allen runs against Susan Collins in two years. While asserting "it's not all for show, it's grueling" for Lawrence to spend the better part of two years running statewide, Chandler says: "Regardless of the outcome we want to do our best. Win or lose this race is important because we have to do it for the party."

Mentioning Tom Connolly's disastrous Democratic candidacy for the governorship the last time around, Chandler wonders what would have happened to the Democratic Party "if we had gone another four years without a credible candidate" for such a high office.

This is not to say that Lawrence and Chandler don't subscribe to the lightening-may-strike theory. And they stress that the Democratic establishment is behind him, evidenced by the fact that his fundraising is respectable. True, he has little cash on hand compared to Snowe, and he ominously observes "she'll be able to raise all the money she needs." But he says that summer fundraising has been going well; he's up to $600,000 collected now. And he expects to meet his budget of $1.5 million. He spends 20 to 25 hours a week soliciting people for money.

Lawrence also is banking on being able to distinguish himself from Snowe on issues. His two big ones, following the lead of Democrats across the country, are health care and education. He would like to roll out nationally the recently passed first-in-the-nation Maine law championed by Sen. Pingree that will see the state negotiate with drug companies for lower drug prices on behalf of citizens who don't have prescription-drug insurance. If the companies refuse to negotiate, the state will set the price.

He also wants a strong "patient's bill of rights" vis-à-vis the health-insurance companies including a right to sue for inadequate health care and a right to see a specialist. Snowe has what he describes as much weaker proposals on both these issues.

On the education front, he promotes President Clinton's "school modernization" proposal, which he says would bring $100 million to the state. Snowe voted with the Republicans to defeat this measures in the Senate. He says she "has pretty much followed the Republican line in Congress," and he doesn't see her positions as "moderate."

But, like her, he is pro-choice on abortion and against a ban on so-called partial-birth abortions. These positions are generally considered progressive. Like her, he opposes a number of proposals for restrictions on handgun purchases. These positions are generally considered conservative. The differences between these candidates are those between a moderate -- some might say conservative -- Democrat and a moderate -- some might say liberal--Republican.

Regardless of ideological classification, "what wedge issue does he have?" postulates Potholm. A wedge issue, as defined in Potholm's book, is "any issue which enables a candidate to gain support at his or her opponent's expense."

Snowe's strategy brilliantly blunts the possibility of a wedge being driven into her campaign. When asked what big issues she is putting forward, she replies without missing a beat: "Health care and education." And she makes an excellent case, politely, implicitly, in her personally engaging manner, that it is Lawrence who is trying to steal these issues from her.

"I haven't been a Johnny-Come-Lately" on the health-care issue, she says, citing her work last year with Sen. Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat, to develop a bipartisan approach to lowering prescription- drug prices. "Last year no one was talking about this issue except Ron Wyden and Olympia Snowe. I don't know where [Lawrence] was." The plan she is working on would subsidize purchases of drugs by Medicare recipients.

On education, she talks about her bipartisan, successful efforts with Democratic senators to prevent student-loan funds from being cut, to extend the Internet to schools, libraries, and health-care facilities, and -- didn't we hear this from Lawrence? -- to renovate schools.

She says Lawrence's attack on her for voting against Clinton's school-modernization bill was unfair since, she says, it actually wouldn't have provided any money for Maine schools. (On politics, Snowe says that she is not taking Lawrence for granted and that she will work hard in her campaign.)

Whatever Lawrence may claim, looked at from any distance away on the political spectrum, there really isn't a lot of difference between them. The right wing of the Maine Republican party considered putting up activist Mary Adams as a challenger to Snowe in the primary election, but backed off. And Lawrence, with no fresh progressive vision, does not excite Maine's Green Party, which is populated largely by disaffected former Democrats.

John Rensenbrink, the Maine Green Party's founder, believes the reason Lawrence is a weak challenger is because "the Democratic party brokers" -- read: the representatives of big corporate interests that control this party like other corporate interests control the Republicans -- "are not upset with Snowe" just like they were not upset with Angus King and so supported him for governor over Connolly in 1998.

Rensenbrink, a government professor emeritus at Bowdoin who was the Green senatorial candidate in 1996 (he got 4 percent of the vote), sees the Snowe-Lawrence race as indicative of the Democrats and Republicans "gradually moving toward one party with two heads." As the fusion into one big, corporate-controlled entity continues, he says, the two-headed beast will more often come to consensus on one person, and sacrificial-lamb candidates will become more and more sacrificial -- that is, weaker -- creating more and more of "a vacuum" in politics. He hopes the Greens will help fill this vacuum. However, the Greens did not put up a candidate against Snowe and Lawrence.

THE LONELINESS OF THE LAMB

So why is it that sacrificial lambs do not return successfully to politics? It is almost impossible to get a politician -- even a former politician -- to say that he or she will never run again, but the story of Jasper "Jack" Wyman, the lamb who did so poorly against George Mitchell in 1988, is instructive. He tried for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 1994, but he only got 16 percent of the vote. The executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine, he was always to the right of most of Maine's GOP. The only reason he carried the Republican banner in '88 was that the party leadership couldn't get anyone else to go against the crushingly popular Mitchell. But they knew Wyman had a "canine appetite for fame," as Potholm puts it, and so asked him.

Wyman says he was not promised anything if he ran, although "there was an implication that if I did it the party would somehow show gratitude." The party was candid with him, he says, that he would lose badly. This is how he describes his key conversation with Charles Craigin, the state party chairman at the time:

"Charlie, I'd like to get more involved with the Republican Party."

"There is something you can do for us -- run for the Senate."

"No. I can't serve in the state Senate and keep my job."

"I'm talking about the US Senate."

One of the most likeable men to run for office in Maine -- even his political enemies smile when asked about Jack Wyman -- he was forced to leave the state after his gubernatorial loss because he had given up his league job and couldn't find work here. He now is a prison minister in Connecticut.

He doesn't regret his Senate race: "I had a lot of fun. It's something I can tell my grandchildren about." And, although it turned out to be a mistaken belief, "I thought it wouldn't hurt for higher office."

Being slaughtered is not fun for everyone. Jim Longley Jr., the highly earnest defeated congressman who ran for governor in 1998, observes: "It's a hell of a sacrifice in terms of time with the kids. You just don't have a life in a campaign." While campaigning, Longley was forced to continue full-time at his job as a consultant to the US Department of Defense except for two weeks of vacation. He ran, he says, for the good of the party, although he was definitely a self-sacrificial lamb, overcoming two much-lesser-known candidates in a primary. He was discouraged from running by a Republican establishment that had gone over to King. "It's difficult to imagine a worse candidate," says Potholm of Longley. In any case, it is difficult to imagine Longley going anywhere in the Republican Party henceforth.

The same is true in the Democratic Party for Connolly, who also had his party abandon him for King in 1998. He, too, was a self-sacrificial type, putting himself forward in a primary against another politically problematical candidate, Joe Ricci, the controversial racetrack owner. Connolly also had to continue working as a Portland lawyer, raised hardly any money, had no staff, and is still paying off campaign debts.

"The point isn't to win but to raise the issues," he maintains. His big issue was the disparity between "the two Maines," the poorer north and the more prosperous south. He understood he was "a long shot," he says, but he didn't believe winning was impossible. Campaigning, though, had an "enormous cost personally," he admits, especially "when people whisper behind your back." But he wouldn't count out running for office again.

This is because "somebody has to carry the torch," he says in his very energetic way. "Somebody has to fight the fight." He sees running for office, in fact, as a "spiritual quest," an heroic endeavor, and says he would tell Mark Lawrence "he's not slaughtered if he raises the issues."

Warming to the topic and true to his heritage, Connolly excitedly cites the example of the great Irish mythological hero Cuchulain, who single-handedly stood off an army. He didn't mention, however, that Cuchulain, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, also "was tricked by his enemies into an unfair fight and slain."

Sometimes we are our own worst enemy and trick ourselves. The simple fact is that when your opponent is vastly stronger, politically or otherwise, you often do not survive to fight another day. In one way or another, the personal cost of the defeat is too high, and people distrust a big loser.

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Lance Tapley can be reached at ltapley@ctel.net.