Apparently, Ms. Dobson and her peasant skirt posse have taken a liking to the confines of the lobby of the Portland office of Senator Collins

First District Congressional Candidate Ethan Strimling has called one of his opponents "inconsistent" on her Iraq war position, accusing her of "sending mixed messages".

In a statement released by the campaign, Mr. Strimling refers to a recent dust up in which Pingree made several public appearances and pronouncements supporting a withdrawal plan. The Strimling campaign has pointed out that Pingree has said she favors an immediate end to the war, yet she also signed on to a plan that withdraws troops and reduces US involvement over a period of time. That plan is known as the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq.

Dean Scontras, candidate for the First Congressional District picked up the endorsement of the National Right to Life Committee. In accepting the endorsement Mr. Scontras stated,

 "I am proud of this endorsement," said Scontras. "I have said throughout this campaign that I am proudly pro-life, and I will not change my beliefs for political expediency. As President Reagan pointed out, it is impossible to diminish the importance of the unborn life without diminishing respect for all human life. I will boldly defend this, the most basic of our values, when I get to Washington."

Mr. Scontras was even able to work in the name of Ronald Reagan, which he is required to do by law in the Republican Party ---  at least six times a day, every day.

Chellie Pingree has a problem. Although, it remains to be seen if it is necessarily a bad problem to have. A few weeks ago she had a great PR week with her press event announcing her intention to support "A responsible plan to end the war in Iraq." PolitickerME covered the story here. In addition to a press conference with General Johns, Ms. Pingree also co-authored an op-ed with Major General Paul Eaton, a lead advocate of the plan to leave Iraq.

Fast forward to this week. On Saturday, May 10th, Major General Eaton apparently had second thoughts on his Pingree endorsement. He sent a letter to the editor of the Portland Press Herald that read in part,

"I recently agreed to allow Chellie Pingree to lend her name to an op-ed column I wrote in support of a very serious plan to end the war in Iraq responsibly ("Democrats sign on to plan to end the Iraq war") published in this paper on April 22. I am writing today to disassociate myself from Chellie Pingree's campaign and endorse Adam Cote's bid for Congress in Maine's 1st District."

Proving once again that "the house always wins", Seth Carey, the man behind the Oxford County Casino has had the assault charges dropped against him

Mr. Carey had a misdemeanor assault charge filed against him on March 18th. As a result, Mr. Carey resigned from his position both in his Casino role and as President of Evergreen Mountain Enterprises.

It is still not clear if Mr. Carey will be returning to the campaign in any official capacity -- or continue to work behind the scenes.

Charlie Summers, who is running for Congress in Maine's first District ---from Baghdad, is returning to Maine within the week. Apparently, he has decided to implement the latest torture techniques on Maine voters.  Mr. Summer and Mr. Scontras have agreed to do 13 debates throughout the first district over the next 20 days.

"I don't want to sound like an ad, a public service ad on TV, but the fact is if you can read, you can walk into a job later on. If you don't, then you've got, the Army, Iraq, I don't know, something like that. It's, it's not as bright. So, that's my little commercial for that."

Mr. King made those comments in Washington DC, while conducting a writer's symposium for high school students. Unlike his unique writing style, Mr. King's comments were nothing more than a rehash of John Kerry's comments

Two groups and no signatures, yet

The People's Veto campaign continues to move ahead - ever so slowly---with two groups now vying for the right to collect signatures.  The Greater Bangor Young Republicans have started a website called http://stoptaxingme.org/ to help jump start the signature collection.  They are joined by www.fedupwithtaxes.org  which is a collection of businesses, trade groups and individuals.

It is a daunting task to collect 60,000 signatures and it is still not clear when boots will hit the ground to collect the needed signatures by mid-July.

Schedule? We don't need no stinkin' schedule!

The Maine GOP hierarchy lost control of their own convention timeline. Whether it was the fault of Chairman Mark Ellis and Executive Director Julie O'Brien or the long-winded tendencies of Republican politicians and activists, who can say? Regardless, elections for National Committeeman and Committeewoman moved along at a snail's pace, Olympia Snowe's speech took longer than Astroturf takes to grow, and the House Republican demonstration, in which every candidate each remarked on their upcoming race, competed for most yawns. As a result, Congressional candidates were shortchanged, Mark Ellis turned down his opportunity to address the convention and convention business usually taken up by delegates was turned over to the state committee for future consideration.

A group of Maine businesses and other organizations have officially launched a People's Veto campaign to repeal LD 2247, which will raise taxes on beer, wine, soda and health insurance claims. The taxes would support the Dirigo Health program. On their website, www.fedupwithtaxes.org the group describes itself as follows:

Fed Up With Taxes is a coalition of Maine citizens, businesses and organizations who are tired of paying high taxes. The coalition is seeking to undo a recently enacted law taxing flavored water, sports drinks, cola, diet cola, juices AND beer and wine AND all health insurance claims.

Assuming the Secretary of State uses his entire 10 days (he will) to review and approve the question, the group should be able to start by Monday, May 12th. They then have until July 17th, or 67 days to collect 55,000 certified signatures. Realistically the will need to collect over 60,000 signatures to make sure they have enough. To make matters more complicated, they really only have until July 10th as it is generally accepted that you need a week lead time to process and certify the signatures with the local towns before they can be submitted to the Secretary of State.