Quite a few readers in Maine are excited that the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram is endorsing Republican Dean Scontras in one of that state’s House races; one of my readers describes it as, “This is the equivalent of the world turning upside down. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen the Herald endorse a Republican challenger to a Democrat incumbent.”

The editors of that paper write:

[Democrat] Chellie Pingree is nearing the end of her first term, a time when the conventional political wisdom says incumbents are most vulnerable. Scontras, who was unchallenged in the Republican primary this spring, is out to prove that adage correct.
He deserves to do so. While it is possible to list a number of reasons Pingree might deserve a second term in office, there is a substantial one, outweighing all the others, that says she shouldn’t.
That is the economy. Scontras’ emphasis on fiscal restraint and the absolute necessity to get spending under control without raising the tax burden on any group of Americans is the right answer to the very serious fiscal problems this nation faces.
Those problems result from fiscal policies undertaken by both the present administration and its predecessor, and the finger-pointing now going on both in Maine and nationally is beside the point. We are where we are, and we have to pick people to represent us who have the best shot at doing something effective and useful about it.
In this race, at this time, that person is Dean Scontras.

A recent poll put Scontras behind quite modestly, 40 percent to 45 percent, to the private-jet-denouncing-then-flying Pingree.

Let’s make Dean Scontras our man to help for Monday.