Our flinty pals in Maine are earning themselves a reputation as the premier dirty-tricksters of the 1980 campaign. Back in November, you may recall, we reported that Reagan supporters had bamboozled the national press by tossing their support in the Maine caucus to an unsuspecting George Bush. The resulting “upset,” descried by the jet-lagged boys on the bus, did much to derail the Howard Baker campaign and set off the boomlet for Bush that proceeds apace. Ronald Reagan, tagged for six months by the very same busload of scribes as The Front-Runner, struggled in with a John Anderson-level 7 per cent of the vote—yet not a single national reporter troubled himself to find an answer to the begged question: Why?
Now it’s the Democrats’ turn, with only a slight change in the script. At the Maine party dinner last month, a straw poll of state activists showed Carter with “surprising strength” against EMK —45 per cent of the total, according to official results. That was cause for celebration in the President’s camp, for, as Carter spokesmen were quick to point out, Maine is Kennedy country—a heavily Catholic Democratic Party led by an ardently pro-Kennedy governor. The national press, on cue, sang the Carter song: Carter gaining in Kennedy back- yard.
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