The Colonel and the Governor

Maine primary voters decide this week between the Republican and Democratic Party candidates who hope to run for Olympia Snowe’s Senate seat. The front-runners, according to polls, include Charles Summers, the Secretary of State, on the Republican side, and State Senator Cynthia Dill and former Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap on the Democratic. Angus King, running as an Independent, commands 56 percent of the vote in a three-way matchup with Summers (21 percent) and Dunlop (12.1 percent) , according to a recent poll taken by the Maine People’s Resource Center.

If King is elected, and if, as some observers predict, the Senate winds up with 50 Republican Senators and 49 Democratic and/or affiliated Independents, then Angus King — who won’t say which party he’ll caucus with — may indeed provide the swing vote in the upper chamber (if, that is, President Obama wins re-election).

It’d be hard to find a more popular politician in Maine than King, except, perhaps, for Chamberlain himself. And by popular, I mean the Colonel has a beer named after him, Shipyard’s Chamberlain Pale Ale. (According to a commenter at beeradvocate.com, it has a “delicious nose” and is “well balanced,” which is more than you can say about most senators.) He’s the one 19th-century Mainer most Americans could probably name, thanks in part to Jeff Daniels’s generous portrayal of him in the film “Gettysburg.” The high point of the movie may be the moment Chamberlain orders the charge, shouting “Bayonets!”

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/the-colonel-and-the-governor/?hp