Residents of Maine island make statement in caucuses

LONG ISLAND, Maine -- In the galactic-sized process of choosing a presidential candidate, this island of lobstermen and mainland refugees 4 miles off the coast of Portland is a speck, charged with selecting a single delegate to the state convention where about 3,500 delegates will select the 24 that go to the national convention in Boston.

But for just over an hour yesterday, Long Island was a laboratory of democracy, holding its first full-fledged caucus with the seriousness of a constitutional convention and offering a window into the complicated and increasingly fevered pitch of this year's Democratic nominating process.

Hunkered down in the wind-battered town hall, the waves of Casco Bay crashing outside, 21 voters took turns unleashing denunciations of President Bush and oratories about the importance of electability.

They pleaded with one another to defect from one candidate's corner to another in the name of principle and opposition to the war in Iraq, and when horse-trading failed, batted about insults.

"Bunch of sheep," Jim Thibault harrumphed as defectors from the Senator John Edwards camp crossed into the already packed corner for supporters of Senator John F. Kerry, the candidate who emerged as the winner here, as he did across Maine yesterday where an estimated 15,000 voters turned out for 400 caucuses.

Maine's caucuses are often overlooked as electoral oddities where neighbors announce their nominee preferences publicly. They carry none of the panache of Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses, and with only 24 delegates at stake, offer up an outcome that merits little more than passing mention in the national news.

But in the meetings on Long Island and across this vast state, the themes emerging in this year's election resounded deeply, signaling a Democratic electorate that, as elsewhere, seems steeped in anger over Republican policies and pivoted around picking someone who will win the White House.

Yesterday in the Long Island town hall, a low-slung former Navy building dating to when the island served as a fuel storage depot during World War II, sharp rhetoric flew among residents as they made arguments about who could win, who might be best in the number two spot, and why.

"We need someone who is able to maintain himself in the heat of the moment," Kathy Stewart said as she stood planted in the Kerry corner. "Someone with experience."

Judy Paolini, the caucus organizer and an Edwards supporter, answered: "I can't agree more that Kerry has the experience, but I see Edwards as more bulletproof. And Bush had no experience before he was president."

More than one person retorted: And we don't want Bush.

Long Island takes politics seriously. Against the odds, it seceded from Portland a decade ago in a stand against ballooning taxes and has since become the proud, if jocular, claimant of a municipal committee for every island resident, all 200 of them.

Yesterday's caucus was a measure of that seriousness. It was the island's first caucus with voters supporting several candidates; no one counts the true first in 1992 when all eight caucusgoers voted for Bill Clinton.

Non-Democrats were barred from speaking -- that included Bob Jordan, husband of Howard Dean supporter Nancy Jordan -- and pleas for candidate switches went out loudly, often targeted at one voter in particular.

"I'm very liberal -- I'm sorry," said Rhonda Stewart, 33, an artist and a supporter of Representative Dennis J. Kucinich who resisted pleas from the Edwards and Kerry camps to come over to their sides.

In the end, it was Stewart and four Dean supporters who refused to budge from their spots at the back of the town hall offices. Edwards supporters were a different story, with two succumbing to the pro-Kerry entreaties.

"I'm going with the winner," said Gail Wood, a retired post office worker, as she made her way to the Kerry corner.

"I'm going to Kerry because he can take it."

Moments later, Wood was joined by Jill McCollum, who offered apologetic nods to her fellow Edwards supporters and explained, "Edwards has a great deal to offer, but this election is too important, even in this little town. I'm going for Kerry."

As elsewhere, the war weighed heavily on Democrats' minds on Long Island, with some expressing unhappiness with the choices as they saw them: Kerry, an electable candidate who voted for a congressional resolution authorizing the Iraq war; Dean and Kucinich, unelectable ones who opposed the war.

In the end, the vote was, including two absentee ballots: 15 for Kerry, four for Dean, three for Edwards, and one for Kucinich.