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Barbara Merrill |
MESSAGE AND STRATEGY “They’re punching each other out,” says independent, former-Democrat, first-term state representative Barbara Merrill, about Baldacci and Woodcock. “There won’t be a party candidate left standing” when all the negative ads have run. In disgust, Maine people will turn to her, she says.She claims, too, that they will turn to her also because she is the only fiscal conservative/social moderate in the race. “John Baldacci lost his fiscal conservative credentials” with his (defeated) plan to have the state borrow $450 million to pay current expenses, she says.
TALENT At the age of 32, her husband Phillip Merrill was a Democratic state senator who ran in the primary for governor — and lost to Joseph Brennan, who became governor. At 60, he has had a career as a Democratic operator and lobbyist. He sees Angus King’s 1994 victory as a model for an independent candidate, although he acknowledges that at this point in that year King was only “five to six points behind” then-frontrunner Brennan in the governor’s race. He also acknowledges his wife is far from there now. And King had a fortune to put into his campaign.
Other than Phil Merrill, the campaign has few experienced people. Campaign manager Jim Webster says he’s organizing putting Merrill signs on private property, since the candidate has pledged not to put them on public land in order to keep Maine unlittered — hamstringing herself significantly.
MONEY Merrill has run a financially conservative campaign. As of the September 26 report, she had $249,000 on hand. So she will be able to buy a good number of TV spots.
TV ADS “We’re producing them locally,” Phil Merrill says. “We don’t want the campaign to look too slick.”
It doesn’t. The ads so far have been about the Baldacci administration’s alleged collusion with paper companies to delay cleanup of the Androscoggin River and about the disgrace that legislators who belong to a party tend to vote with the party. A professional campaign would have run a bio spot first.
NEWS COVERAGE Merrill has gotten attention with gimmicky ideas like a gambling train to Montreal. But she got attention, too, when her campaign was fined $10,000 by the ethics commission because of a financial reporting mistake made by Webster.
GRASS-ROOTS “Not a great deal,” the candidate says candidly. Grass-roots work is almost impossible without a political party.
