Foul-weathered fans line up for Obama event

By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff

PORTLAND, Maine -- As President Obama continues his series of road trips to ease the worries of an electorate skeptical of the new health care law, it appears he will be heard by a sympathetic crowd when he travels to southern Maine Thursday.
    Or a hardy one, anyway. Thousands of Mainers stood in line for many hours in the rain early Wednesday for the chance to snag a pair of free tickets to the president's speech in the gym at Portland's Expo Center. A few brought lawn chairs and waited through a night of gusty winds and downpours to make sure they'd get tickets.
    “I'm very impressed by his [political] risk to make health care a reality. He kept his vision,'' said Beverly Burton, 54, a nursing student who arrived before midnight Tuesday so she could get a chance to see the president. Burton acknowledged that she did spend a few hours sitting in her car during the worst part of the rainstorm early Wednesday, but managed to tough it out most of the night with a fierce determination and several layers of warm clothing.
    ``I'm insulated by the excitement,'' she said, ``I'm determined to meet Barack Obama.''
    The line for tickets snaked around the corner and continued to grow, even when word passed down that tickets were running low. Marina Karnofsky, 17, left Bar Harbor at 2 a.m. with some friends to collect tickets for her high school classmates. Representative Chellie Pingree, Democrat of Maine, got hugs and thanks for her ``yes'' vote on health care overhaul as she greeted constituents in line. Portland represents the more liberal part of Maine, which has two GOP senators and two Democratic House members.
    Pro-Obama voters said they fully expected to see fellow citizens protesting the health care package on Thursday; a ``Tea Party'' rally in Bangor earlier in the week drew some 400 people who railed, among other things, against the health care law. But the crowd that showed up Wednesday to get spots for Obama's visit was overwhelmingly in favor of the package.
    Rory Sellers, 62, said he was glad the health law was finally completed but disappointed that it did not have a public option, as much of Obama's liberal base wanted. And Obama needs to do more to convince other Americans, Sellers said. ``I hope he really goes out of his way to say why this is important,'' Sellers said.
    Obama plans to do exactly that, and the White House believes that the more people understand what is in the law, the more comfortable they will be with it.
    Still, some Mainers are deeply concerned about the impact of the law, especially on the state's elderly population. Maine has one of the oldest populations in the country, and health care providers are worried about  Medicare cuts on home health care.
    ``It's devastating,'' said Vicki Purgavie, executive director of the Home Care and Hospice Alliance Of Maine. Some home health care agency branches - and perhaps entire provider agencies -- may have to close because of expected cuts, she said. Advocates of the health care package say the cuts are directed at cutting waste, fraud and abuse in the system.
    Why did the president choose Maine as an early stop on his national sales trip? White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said this week he didn't know; deputy press secretary Bill Burton Wednesday noted only that the president would talk about the impact on small businesses, which are eligible for tax credits.
    Ron Schmidt, a political science professor at the University of Southern Maine, speculated that Obama may  be showing he's not afraid to come to a state where both senators voted ``no'' on his package -- or maybe that Obama was making a gesture toward senior GOP Senator Olympia Snowe, who voted for the bill in the Finance Committee and against it on the floor. She is considered a moderate who might be persuaded to vote with Democrats on some issues, which could help them overcome filibusters.
    ``There has been debate about health care reform in Maine, but it hasn't been terribly heated,'' Schmidt said. ``I find it a little surprising that this is going to be [one of] his stops.''