The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife is proposing the designation of a new endangered species: 2nd Congressional District voters who support Tom Allen for the US Senate.
State biologists say there have been no confirmed sightings of this elusive creature since 2006, when a motorist reported picking up a hitchhiking hippie near Orono. “He was in favor of stem cell research, increased welfare spending and same sex marriage,” the motorist said. “And he tried to get me to play a Dixie Chicks CD.”
Scientists were able to match those characteristics through a DNA database and definitely label the scruffy long-hair as an Allen backer.
It’s still not known if the hippie was native to the 2nd District or had been transported across the border, like variable leaf milfoil or the Green Party. It’s also not clear if the sighting indicates a breeding colony of liberals has survived in the northern part of the state, since Allenites are notorious for practicing safe sex and birth control.
These questions will likely be answered in 2008, when Allen, the current Democratic US representative in Maine’s 1st District, challenges Republican US senator Susan Collins. To win that race, Allen will need to find somebody north of Augusta willing to vote for him.
Before I go any further, let me confess the error of my ways. Until recently, I was sure Allen would pass on a Senate bid in favor of remaining in the House, where he’d be in line, in the near future, for a leadership post. But political insiders say Allen has never been comfortable in the lower chamber, with its heavy workload, light influence, and constant campaigns for re-election. The chance to become deputy assistant whip for bondage films and ox-pulling contests was insufficient to lure him into another 1st District run. Allen has confided to his inner circle that even the possibility he might lose to Collins (fairly high), effectively ending his political career, isn’t enough to convince him to try for a position of prominence in the House.
Like fellow Democrats Tom Andrews and Joe Brennan — both 1st District congressmen turned unsuccessful Senate candidates — he’d prefer extinction to distinction.
Which brings us back to Allen’s problem finding supporters outside his home turf. For 2nd District voters, his lack of appeal begins with his image, which could be described as “Portland elitist,” “policy wonk,” or “club-soda sipper in a beer-and-a-shot bar.”
“Not only does Allen have the looks and the bearing of the successful candidate,” wrote the unabashedly elitist Maine Times back in 1999, “but he has an impeccable political lineage. His father and his grandfather before him served on the Portland City Council.”
Zowie.
Allen doesn’t do a good job of concealing his opinion that he’s smarter than everybody else. The fact that he really is smarter makes that attitude even more annoying. As does his tendency to say things like, “By taking stock of our social capital, we can appreciate how and why our country has changed.”
In the 2nd District, folks take stock of the supply of canned goods, the state of the wood pile, and whether the roof will last another winter.
