All the small things BY AL DIAMON

Because the news media have been so busy bringing you important seasonal information ("Coming up on the six o’clock report, charming holiday decorations you can make by recycling Governor John Baldacci’s press releases"), anchorpersons and investigative journalists can hardly be expected to waste time and space on the minutiae of politics ("This just in: Baldacci went through an entire day without screwing up"). But since I’ve got nothing better to do ("Honey, I think that ornament made from the Department of Health and Human Services press release is crooked"), here are a few factoids that, with a little luck, you missed.

◊ Democratic state representative Barbara Merrill of Appleton is up to something. Merrill just published a book called "Setting the Maine Course," in the foreword of which she cites a similar work put out in 1994 by independent Angus King, just as he announced he was running for governor. Merrill lays out detailed plans to do everything from reducing taxes to cutting regulations to limiting spending to protecting the environment to enhancing local control — a plan far more exhaustive than most gubernatorial platforms. Asked if she’s planning to challenge the Blaine House incumbent, Merrill was uncharacteristically coy. "To announce anything right now would have legal consequences," she e-mailed. "But ... my New Year’s resolution is do everything I can to change state government."

◊ Two weeks ago I reported on the maneuvering to replace retiring Democratic state senator Scott Cowger of Hallowell. While the likely Republican candidate for the seat remains state representative Earle McCormick of West Gardiner, the Democrats have a new contender for the job. Both state representative Stan Moody of Manchester and former senate majority leader Sharon Treat of Gardiner are said to be taking passes on the race in favor of Brian Rines, mayor of Gardiner for the past 13 years. Rines, whose college nickname was "Melon," said he’s ruled out reviving the campaign slogan he used when he ran for campus office: "You won’t get a lemon with this Melon." No doubt, the time was ripe for a change.

◊ Those wondering why it’s so difficult to figure out what’s wrong with the state Department of Health and Human Services (one guess: everything) got a clue December 7, when Commissioner John Nicholas announced he was quitting. In his resignation letter, Nicholas claimed credit for "structural and foundational changes" that will enable the next DHHS boss to "use this foundational momentum" to do all kinds of wonderful stuff, possibly involving something foundational. Any chance the new commissioner will speak English?

◊ Bowdoin College professor and pollster Chris Potholm can’t possibly be the source of every stupid rumor floating around Maine political circles, but he’s being credited with two of the dumbest to surface recently. In early December, a reporter called former GOP state Senator Rick Bennett of Norway, saying he’d heard from Potholm that Bennett was running for governor. Bennett reminded the journalist he’d just endorsed Chandler Woodcock’s candidacy for that office. Shortly afterwards, Bennett got another call inquiring about the Potholm-spawned gossip that Bennett was considering challenging US Senator Olympia Snowe in next year’s Republican primary. Bennett explained such a move would constitute a conflict of interest, since he’s Snowe’s campaign treasurer.

◊ If Baldacci, Woodcock, Peter Mills, David Emery and the other major gubernatorial candidates have one thing in common, it’s their tendency to bore people to death. But dullness may not be their worst fault, as anyone who’s stumbled across Bruce Fleming’s campaign for governor has discovered. Fleming, a Bangor resident, is nothing if not interesting. He refuses to accept either public or private money, because any contribution would bind him to special interests. "I have no political connections," he brags on his Web site. He won’t bother collecting signatures to get on the ballot, preferring to rely on a write-in campaign. He promises to save the state money in unlikely ways. He’ll boost the Rainy Day Fund by contributing 10 percent of his salary. (Should Maine experience significant precipitation, the $7,000 Fleming is donating will buy a second or two of relief.) He’ll reduce the size of the Legislature by two people. (Fleming seems to think there are 34 legislators, so by cutting that to 32, each county would get a pair. In fact, there are 186 House and Senate members, and the US Supreme Court, in its one-person-one-vote ruling in the 1960s, decreed Maine’s old system of assigning state senators by county to be unconstitutional.) And he’d negotiate with suppliers to get state agencies cheaper office supplies. Fleming runs his own publishing company, which has put out two books of his poetry. A Web search turned up one example of his versification, an enthusiastic endorsement of the joys of masturbation.

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