For Senate candidates, campaign logistics coming together

By Jessica Alaimo, PolitickerME.com Reporter

Tom Allen’s campaign has been in full swing for months. Susan Collins’ campaign, however, is just starting to move into their Portland office.

Both campaigns are making progress this month in getting their office spaces together and hiring staff.

Steve Abbott, who works part-time as Collins’ chief of staff and part-time as her campaign manager, said the delay in getting the campaign started is deliberate.

“Sen. Collins’ philosophy is that campaigns are too long,” Abbott said. “There’s no reason to be campaigning more than a year before an election.”

Instead – despite the interest groups knocking on her door – she would focus on her work in the Senate.

“The decision has proven to be a good one,” Abbott said.

The pieces are coming together, though. On Wednesday, the only thing that defined the campaign’s office off Forest Avenue was a line of campaign signs by the door. Inside, furniture is scarce, the white walls are daunting and empty office after empty office makes the otherwise simple lay out seem like a maze. Abbott’s office is the exception.

The campaign is actively hiring staff. Currently they have three full-time and four part-time people. He said a full staff of about 12 should be in place by March, with the campaign in full swing over the summer.

“In the summer she’ll look like a candidate,” Abbott said.

Allen’s staff count is up to around 16. Communications director Carol Andrews released his leadership team, which can be viewed here.

Among them is Campaign Manager Valerie Martin, whose fundraising background includes raising $4.6 million for Pennsylvania Rep. Allyson Schwartz in 2004. Internet Director Mike Nutter was a former intern for Allen, and then was hired as Technology and Outreach Coordinator in his congressional office.

Andrews is a former journalist, who has spent 20 years in strategic communications for political, corporate and non-profit interests.

Allen’s campaign got new digs in December. Prior to then they were working out of a smaller office in the same Forest Avenue building in Portland, but had outgrown it.

The two campaign offices are just blocks from each other.

JESSICA ALAIMO is a PolitickerME.com Reporter and can be reached via email at jessica.alaimo@politickerme.com.

Related topics: Susan Collins, Tom Allen, Steve Abbott

If you liked this article, subscribe to The Wake-Up Call. It's FREE!

Email this Article

Comments

Allen hired Carol "Boom-Boom" Andrews?

posted by melvin

Carol Andrews from Tennessee?

Is this th same Carol Andrews that attacked a cameraman in the 2006 race in tennessee, and was caught on tape?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Hlqe6EbSnuY

01/24/08 9:16 pm

Two Terms

posted by Gerald Weinand

Of course Collins doesn't have a full campaign staff yet. She did promise - twice - to serve only two terms, so this effort to serve a third must have come as a surprise.

01/24/08 9:52 pm

twice, thrice, vice?

posted by Watchdog Maine

Gerald - get over it will ya! Let the candidates succeed on their merits - not this childish crapola. Waaaaaa! Waaaaaa!

01/25/08 10:06 pm

Let us look at McCain’s

posted by Dan

Let us look at McCain’s conservative credentials:
-IMMIGRATION: he wrote the bill granting amnesty to illegal immigrants (co-sponsored by Ted Kennedy)
-SOCIAL SECURITY: he voted to give your social security money to illegal immigrants
-TAXES: he voted against the Bush tax cuts multiple times (he has since flip-flopped and has campaigned as a lifelong tax-cutter)
-RHETORIC: he routinely engages in Democratic class warfare against big companies in America, particularly the “evil” drug companies who research cures to debilitating diseases for a profit
-ECONOMY: as recently as December 2007 he admitted “he does not know the economy very well” and needed to get better at it
-1ST AMENDMENT: he wrote the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that was declared to be an unconstitutional infringement of the 1st Amendment (co-sponsored by ultra-liberal Democrat Russ Feingold)
-2ND AMENDMENT: he was called the “worst 2nd amendment candidate” by the president of the NRA
-ENERGY TAX: wrote a bill (co-sponsored by his buddy Lieberman) imposing a massive tax on energy which, according to the Department of Energy, would drastically raise the price of gasoline and put 300,000 Americans out of work
-GLOBAL WARMING: supports radical global warming legislation which involved him voting with every Democrat; think only America is responsible to take action, not other superpowers
-JUDGES: he joined forces with Democrats (Gang of 14) to block the Senate Republican’s attempt to confirm conservative, strict constructionist judges; also said Alito was too conservative for his liking
-WAR ON TERROR: fought with Hillary Clinton to demand that terrorists be given a full American trial
-GAY MARRIAGE: he joined liberals to fight against a federal marriage amendment supporting the institution of traditional marriage
-CHRISTIANS: campaigning in 2000, he famously described Christian leaders as “agents of intolerance”
-PRO-LIFE: he filed an amicus brief against pro-life advocates in Wisconsin
-BI-PARTISANSHIP: he met with leading Democrats in 2004 to discuss the possibility of being John Kerry’s Vice-President; publicly considered leaving the Republican Party in 2001 after he lost the primary
-PROFESSIONAL ETHICS: ringleader of the infamous Keating 5 ethical scandal which cost US tax payers $160 billion (Google it)
-PERSONAL ETHICS: McCain cheated on his first wife after she had a severe accident that left her partially disabled. He then divorced her and married his multi-millionaire mistress, whose daddy bought McCain a spot in the Congress