The Reign in Maine

A Portland attorney named Richard H. Broderick was one of six Portland Democrats running for a seat in the Maine house of representatives. Lawyer Broderick, well aware that his party had not elected a representative to the legislature from Portland since Depression 1934, made no speeches, decided shortly after the campaign began to accept a good job in Los Angeles, packed up and headed West. Last week Broderick got a long-distance telephone call. The gist: come home; you've won.

Broderick was one of many: in the nation's first 1956 general election* the reign in Maine fell plainly on the Democrats. Democratic Governor Edmund Sixtus Muskie, 42, running for a second term against Willis A. Trafton Jr., 37, speaker of the state house of representatives, had been conceded an edge, but he was highly surprised by his 179,697-to-123,784 victory. Lewiston Lawyer and Democratic State Chairman Frank M. Coffin fared even more spectacularly by winning, for the first time in 22 years, the Democratic congressional seat in the industrial (Lewiston) Second District. Democrat James C. Oliver lost his fight for Congressman from the industrial First District (Portland) to five-term Representative Robert Hale by only 28 votes, and may apply for a recount. Democrats won 63 seats in the 184-member state legislature-- an increase of 23, six of them in Portland alone--to knock out the Republicans' two-thirds veto power in the house.

"One Good Term . . ." How did it happen? For one thing, as Dwight Eisenhower said later, "Maine had a very popular governor." Genial Ed Muskie, son of a Polish immigrant, had turned in a successful administration, programmed improvements in social welfare, education, development of natural resources, asked for a minimum wage law, a new department of industry and commerce, and proposed a bond issue to maintain the pace of highway construction. What further fired Maine's independent-minded voters was Muskie's straightforward eggheadedness (Bates '36, Phi Beta Kappa), his ability to discuss convincingly ethical and moral questions. In his campaign he had only to bear down hard on his record, spread his gospel--tagged with a surefire slogan: "One good term deserves another."

But Muskie's popularity was only part of the story. The figures told the rest: the voting strength of both parties was up, but the Democrats were up more. Republican Trafton, for example, polled 10,486 votes more than 1954's G.O.P. candidate; Muskie pulled in 44,024 more votes than he had gotten in 1954. In the First District, Republican Congressman Hale got 10,700 votes more than in 1954; Democrat Oliver got an additional 14,418. In the newly Democratic Second District, the Republican earned an extra 2,531 votes over 1954, the Democrat an extra 16,350. Only in the predominantly rural Third District did the increase favor a Republican (4,527 v. 2,580).

"No Comfort." Where did the new Democratic votes come from? Washington pundits quickly pointed out that in the Maine cities where the Democrats pulled mightily, labor unions (principally the A.F.L.-C.I.O. textile workers) had done a thorough job of corralling the voters, but in Maine union leaders and on-the-spot reporters denied any unusual activity. Support came in strongly from the throngs of independents who 1) approved of Muskie and 2) did not take a shine to the warnings from Trafton and other Republican candidates that "a vote for Muskie is a vote against Ike." Finally, despite Republican efforts to come up with attractive candidates, e.g., Trafton, the enthusiastic new Democratic organization in Maine was just too fast on its feet for Maine's old-line, footsore Republicans, who too long had dragged their heels on state issues.

Summed up Maine's Republican Senator Margaret Chase Smith (who has four more years before facing re-election): "Republicans can take no comfort from the result--whether from the state or the national viewpoint."

* But Maine will vote for President and Vice President like everybody else Nov. 6.

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