U.S. Senate candidate and former Gov. Angus King, the heavy favorite in the race to succeed Sen. Olympia Snowe, campaigned in Lincoln County Aug. 3.
King, with a small entourage, made the rounds of businesses in Damariscotta, Newcastle and South Bristol in the morning.
King visited South Bristol first, greeting supporters and eating breakfast at Harborside Grocery and Grill.
Sam and Betsy Graves own Harborside. Betsy Graves said she first met King through a mutual friend years ago and was impressed with him. She said she plans to vote for him as long as he continues to run a positive campaign.
Betsy Graves’ sister, Ann McFarland, and mother, Olevia Watson, are enthusiastic King supporters.
Watson, 90, of Newcastle, still works at a Wiscasset antique shop. A Republican, she nonetheless voted for the independent twice, in the 1994 and 1998 gubernatorial elections.
She particularly liked his Maine Learning Technology Initiative, the first-of-its-kind program that equipped junior high students and teachers with laptops.
“He will be a voice of reason and hopefully can work equally well with both parties,” Watson said.
McFarland, a real estate agent and South Bristol resident, remembers meeting King for the first time during his first gubernatorial campaign.
The candidate, despite the weather, was campaigning outside Cumberland County Civic Center before a Portland Pirates game.
“He was as genuine today as he was that day,” McFarland said.
“I think what’s upsetting me most about this campaign is the distortion of his record and the facts,” McFarland said. “I just don’t understand that kind of politicking and I like that he’s not stooping to that level.”
“He really is distinctively different in a really good way,” she said.
The theme of King as a different kind of candidate persisted throughout the morning.
Bob Emmons, a South Bristol Republican, first met King two months ago as one of a group of veterans meeting with the candidate.
“He was there to listen and learn,” Emmons said. “I’ve never been big on politicians, but he’s a very impressive guy.”
Now, Emmons is the South Bristol chairman for the King campaign.
“I was a big admirer of Olympia Snowe and I think he’s the best choice” to succeed her, Emmons said.
After breakfast, King and company headed down the road to the South Bristol Fisherman’s Co-op.
King, in a brief interview in the co-op parking lot, discussed the factors that have led to this year’s low lobster prices and what might be done to help the fishery.
Soft-shell lobsters arrived early this year, flooding the market and catching Canadian processors off guard.
A lobster-processing facility in the Midcoast might help prevent a repeat, King said.
King also said the demand for Maine lobster isn’t keeping pace with the rapid increase in supply.
“The volume of lobster has dramatically increased” in recent years, he said. Last year, landings topped 100 million pounds for the first time.
The dramatic increase in supply creates a need for better promotion. King said he supports Gov. Paul LePage’s stated intent to brand the Maine lobster.
“This is a rare, precious commodity that we need to be getting more money for,” he said.
He talked about some of those issues with co-op employees. “Part of this process is learning,” he said on his way to the wharf.
Brenda Bartlett is the manager of the co-op, where the boat price stands at $2 per pound for soft-shell lobsters. King’s assessment of the problem is accurate; his ideas about how to address it practical, Bartlett said.
“We need more processing places in the state of Maine,” Bartlett said. “The Canadians weren’t ready for our lobster, so that caused a lot of places to have to hang on to them.”
She said the government might take steps to encourage processors to set up in Maine.
Bartlett, of Damariscotta, said she’ll probably vote for King in November. “I thought he did a good job when he was in before,” she said.
King also visited Osier’s Wharf, where he talked with carpenters working on a wharf expansion.
He paused briefly on the lawn of a nearby house to admire the view of The Gut as the swing bridge opened to allow a lobster boat through.
“Remind me again why I want to move to Washington,” he said. “It looks like a movie set.”
Later in the morning, King walked through downtown Damariscotta and Newcastle and ate lunch at the Damariscotta River Grill with Lincoln County Spark, a community service and social networking group. He visited Moody’s Diner in Waldoboro in the afternoon and chatted with supporters and business owners on Wiscasset’s pier.
Joe Lugosch, at Midcoast Kayak in Damariscotta, gave King the most enthusiastic of many unscripted endorsements.
As King walked along the opposite side of Main Street, Lugosch, a college student from Bristol, waved from the business entrance.
“We love you, Angus!” he shouted.
