President Bush wasn't in the room.

But he dominated a meeting today between Tom Allen and Susan Collins hosted by the editorial board for the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram.

Allen, the Democratic congressman from the 1st Congressional District, repeatedly blamed Bush and his supporters in Congress - including Collins - for the nation's economic woes.

"They have brought us to the edge of financial disaster," he said.

Collins, the incumbent Republican senator defending her seat against a challenge from Allen, repeatedly showed where she parted ways with the Bush administration.

"I voted against the last three budgets," she said.

The one-hour meeting, convened to help the newspaper's editorial writers make an endorsement decision, mirrored the themes that have come to dominate the Senate race.

Allen devoted much of his time to linking the Wall Street crisis, energy prices and other issues to Bush administration policies, while Collins emphasized her independence and record of bipartisanship.

The nation's economic problems, Allen said, flowed partly from the administration's "habitual and persistent" failure to regulate segments of the financial market.

He said the problems won't be solved by re-electing the people who helped to bring them about.

But Collins noted that Allen had voted against amendments that would have strengthened a 2005 House bill to increase oversight of mortgage lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.

Each candidate accused the other of distorting their voting records, and both called for more stringent regulation of financial markets in the wake of the $700 billion bailout they both voted for in Congress last week.

The newspaper, which endorsed Collins in 2002, plans to publish its endorsement in the Senate race on Sunday.

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