Today's Column in Visual Form:

Image by Patrick Moberg (Hat tip to Laughing Squid)

We've got a long night ahead of us folks and all hands are on deck down here in the Press Herald newsroom.

Tonight we're going to partake a bit of an experiment as I'll be live blogging Election night here from the Press Herald Newsroom (Or Press Herald Plaza as I affectionately refer to it. Election Plaza was already taken.)

I'll give you updates on what we're chasing, where our reporters are and any other election night tidbits I can find.

Check back often!

It is FINALLY the last day of campaigning in Election 2008. And while tomorrow is the day that really counts, the campaigns are working sunrise to sunset to try and get every last vote possible.

Let's take a quick look at the map and who's where today:

We're getting so very close to election day, and for voters that means a big decision and a much needed break from the ads, debates, lawn signs and all the other elements that make up the campaigns season.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic Congressman Tom Allen are closing out their final days on the campaign for one of Maine's U.S. Senate seats.

I followed them around for two days capturing just a bit of their busy schedule that had them crisscrossing the state and sometimes just miles away from each other in the same city.

Tom Allen's attendance record in the U.S. House of Representatives was a flash point in the ninth of 10 debates between the Democratic congressman and Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins.

Collins, seeking re-election to a third term, has been running television ads calling attention to 157 missed roll call votes during Allen's 12-year tenure.

Allen says he missed votes to be with his parents when they were dying, when his daughter was married and when his wife was being treated for breast cancer.

"I make no apologies for standing by my family," Allen said to Collins Wednesday in the debate sponsored by WCSH-TV. "You should pull that ad down."

But the Collins campaign has noted that Allen missed three votes in 2002 so he could attend the 1999 Major League Baseball All Star game; six votes so he could attend a trade conference in Miama; and 19 votes last May and June while on a fund-raising swing in California for his Senate campaign.

"We understand that there are family reasons for missing votes," said Collins spokesman Kevin Kelley. "Tom Allen should simply explain where he was for the many others that he missed."

The last of 10 debates in the Senate campaign, sponsored by Maine Public Broadcasting Network, will be held tonight at the University of Southern Maine.

At this late quarter in the political season, a little bit of attention starts to go to the scoreboard.

Specifically, candidates start talking about endorsements, those (sometimes) prized expressions of support.

They come from all corners, typically unions, non profits, interest groups and yes, newspapers.

(Note - here in Political Extra you will not be getting in depth explanations of how the Press Herald's endorsement process works. The editorial board is shielded away like the judges behind the Oscars. You'd have an easier time trying to crack the inner circle of The Illuminati. I've personally got no idea how the process works. Those of us on the outside find out the same time you do - when you see it in the paper.)

But what do endorsements mean?

Let's look at a quick tally from some organizations:

Senate Race

Sen. Susan Collins (R): National Federation of Independent Businesses, Business and Professional Women's Political Action Committee, The League of Conservation Voters

Rep. Tom Allen (D): Planned Parenthood, Portsmouth Metal Trades Council, Maine Education Association

District 1 Race

Charlie Summers (R): U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Sportsman's Alliance of Maine, National Federation of Independent Business

Chellie Pingree (D): Maine State Nurses Association, Maine State Employees Association, The Sierra Club

So what does this tell us? Tough to say really, as in some cases organizations don't endorse strictly by party. The League of Conservation Voters endorsed Pingree. In 2002 Planned Parenthood endorsed Collins over Pingree.

Let's put the question out there - what's the value of endorsements and what do they symbolize?

Note - We can agree on one thing. All of these candidates are better off than U.S. Rep Tim Mahoney. The Democratic congressman from Florida was endorsed by the Palm Beach Post last Sunday, but took it back by last Thursday. Rooney is currently under investigation for paying off a former staffer (and mistress) to avoid a sexual harassment lawsuit.

Here's an interesting CNN analysis comparing the political fortunes of U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina. The story points out that Collins appears to be one of the few embattled Republican senators who could survive the forthcoming Democratic wave.

Read the CNN story.

It's big game season on TV right now, with the baseball playoffs going the distance (and the Red Sox facing a challenge in Tampa Bay), but also college football and the NFL.

But there's another sport grabbing a lot of attention this time of year - Debates.
Presidential debates, vice presidential debates, local debates, etc., etc.

In the U.S. Senate race, U.S. Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, have been spending a lot of time behind podiums for months now, and tomorrow they'll be at it again in an hour-long debate starting at noon on the University of Southern Maine's Portland campus.

I'll be taking part in tomorrow's debate on a panel of journalists asking questions of Allen and Collins, but the debate will also feature a large share of questions from the public.

You can start by submitting questions via E-mail, which will be considered for the discussion. The questions will be taken today all the way through the debate.

If you've got an extended lunch break or some free time tomorrow, you can come to the debate and submit your questions in person at the Hannaford Lecture Hall in the Abromson Community Education Center.

We'll be doing this all over again in two weeks on Oct. 28 for the 1st Congressional District debate between Democrat Chellie Pingree and Republican Charlie Summers.

And don't forget you can catch tomorrow's debate live online at PressHerald.com and WMTW.com.

It's a long-standing newspaper tradition - with each election cycle comes the endorsement of local candidates.
And unless the newspaper's editorial staff likes to shoot from the hip, they usually bring the candidates in for an interview.

With this year's interview we decided to bring the video camera in on the discussion.

Continue reading "Video: Allen/Collins Endorsement Interviews"

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.

Another new poll shows that U.S. Rep. Tom Allen has closed the gap between he and U.S. Sen. Susan Collins in the Nov. 4 Senate election.

Rasmussen Reports, a national independent polling firm, finds that Collins is leading Allen by 53 percent to 43 percent, a 10-point margin that is down from a 13-point lead last month and a 15-point lead in August.

The Rasmussen trend echoes that of a poll released Monday by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. That poll reported that Collins' lead over Allen had shrunk to 8 percentage points, with the Republican senator ahead by 49 percent to 41 percent.

Collins is one of several Republican senators who are losing support as a result of concerns over the economy, Rasmussen says. The firm says Republican senate seats in Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon and Virginia are now at risk.

In Maine, Allen, a Democrat, has the support of 80 percent of his party and 3 percent of Republicans, while Collins has the support of 94 percent of Republicans and 20 percent of Democrats, the poll found. Unenrolled voters back Collins, 55 percent to 37 percent.

The Maine poll was conducted by telephone last Thursday. It involved 500 likely voters and has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points, at a 95 percent confidence level.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Tom Allen is gaining ground on U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, the Republican incumbent he hopes to unseat on Nov. 4. At least that's what a new poll commissioned by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has found.

Collins leads Allen by 49 percent to 41 percent, an 8 percentage point gap that is considerably smaller than the 15-point lead she once had, the Democratic committee reports. Ten percent of poll respondents said they were undecided.

The poll was conducted from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2 by the Mellman Group, a key consulting and polling firm for the Democratic Party. The firm gathered telephone responses from 600 likely voters. The poll has a margin of error of 4 percent.

U.S. Rep. Tom Allen says he raised nearly $1 million over the last three-months, according to an email he sent to supporters today.

Allen, a Democrat, is running for the U.S. Senate against the Republican incumbent, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins.

Sept. 30 was the deadline for candidates to tell the Federal Election Commission about much money they raised in the third quarter. The information won't be made public until later this month.

In the previous reporting period, from April 1 to May 21, Allen had raised $219,650, raising his overall contributions to $3.93 million.

Sen. Susan Collins voted for the financial bailout last night, debated challenger U.S. Rep. Tom Allen this morning and has big plans ahead, her campaign said. If she doesn't have to head down for another Senate vote (because, say, the House torpedoed the plan, again), Collins will be hitting the Maine Event .... The Fryeburg Fair!

Democratic Rep. Tom Allen and Republican Sen. Susan Collins will face a third opponent in the Nov. 4 general election: Herbert Hoffman, an independent anti-war, pro-impeachment candidate.

Secretary of State Matt Dunlap on Monday rejected the Maine Democratic Party’s challenge to keep Hoffman off of the ballot. The party alleged that Hoffman’s petitions were invalid because he was not in the area where registered voters were signing them.

“I’m very gratified that the Secretary of State has upheld the hearing officer’s recommendation. This is a vindication of my petition efforts and it is also a ruling in favor of voters’ rights,” Hoffman said in a phone interview.

The ruling ends a two-week long dispute between Hoffman and the Maine Democratic Party, which began earlier this month when Hoffman submitted 4,112 signature to qualify for the ballot. He needed 4,000.

But the Maine Democratic Party challenged the validity of some of the signatures.

The two parties met at a hearing before the Secretary of State’s office on Monday. After reviewing the party’s complaints, Julie Flynn, Maine’s Deputy Secretary of State, found that 74 signatures were invalid, leaving Hoffman with 4,038 signatures.

“There’s no pattern of forethought of abuse,” Dunlap said, adding that the state party’s challenge “was not sufficient” to keep Hoffman off of the ballot.

Below is the statement from the Maine Democratic Party.

Several senators and lobbyists feted Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, last week at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, helping her raise $50,000 in her bid for a third term.

Collins faces Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine.

Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe of Maine, Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania, Thad Cochran of Mississippi and Orrin Hatch of Utah, attended the luncheon, according to Felicia Knight, Collins' deputy campaign manager.

The next quarterly reports must be filed by July 1 and they will be available to the public on July 15. We can then tell which lobbyists showed up and who gave how much.

Maine's Secretary of State's office denied a hearing on Friday to a third party candidate who failed to get the requisite number of signatures to qualify for a spot on the ballot in the fall.

Laurie Dobson of Kennebunk, who wanted to run for U.S. Senate as a pro-impeachment, anti-war candidate, failed to get 4,000 valid signatures. Without a hearing, she said she's going to court and plans to file a lawsuit in Maine Superior Court to argue that the state is not in compliance with the Help America Vote Act.

Meanwhile, Herbert Hoffman of Ogunquit, another independent candidate vying for a spot on the Senate ballot, will have his hearing on Monday before the Secretary of State's office to decide whether he has enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.

The Maine Democratic Party has contested Hoffman's petitions, alleging duplicative signatures, invalid addresses and a slew of other complaints.

That's the lead story in today's issue of Roll Call, a trade publication that covers politics, lobbying, elections and all things Congress. It's subscription only so here's some of the text.

Here's what Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, had to say about Maine's Senate race:

Democrats believe they have a shot at winning as many as 11 GOP-controlled Senate seats this fall, with Schumer predicting the best shot at five — Virginia, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Colorado and Alaska, according to Roll Call.

Schumer cited Minnesota, Oregon and North Carolina as the next group of states for possible Democratic pickups, and three longer shots in the states of Mississippi, Maine and Kentucky, the latter of which is home to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“That’s just where the snapshot is now,” Schumer told Roll Call.

A non-profit group opposed to a key legislative priority for organized labor has confused Portland, Maine with Portland, Oregon.

"If Tom Allen thinks a private election is the best way to elect himself, why doesn’t he support the same system for working Oregonians?" the group writes on its Web site.

Of course, Democratic Rep. Allen is running in Maine against Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, who is seeking a third term. Oregon features its own potentially competitive Senate race.

"Just as they don’t know much about hard-working Mainers, they seem to know even less about geography," Carol Andrews, Allen's spokeswoman, said.

Tim Miller, the group's spokesman, said it was a "typo."

A posting on the Employee Freedom Action Committee's website criticizes Allen for "doing labor's dirty work" by supporting the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that the House approved last year to give employees the power to form a union through a process called "majority sign up." If a majority of employees sign a card approving a union, the employer must accept it. Current law requires a secret election.

Senate Republicans blocked a vote on the legislation by a 51-48 vote. Sens. Collins and Olympia Snowe, both Republicans, voted to continue debate on the measure.

Business groups are running television advertisements against the proposal and warning that if Democrats pick up enough seats in the November election, they will have a filibuster proof margin to pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

Every week or so at the Washington Post blog, "The Fix," Chris Cillizza ranks the nation's top ten Senate races. On Friday, he dropped Maine's senate race to tenth place from ninth. Read his quick snapshot of the race here.

Meanwhile, Rassmussen has a new poll showing Collins leading Allen, with 52 percent of the vote, compared to Allen's 42 percent. Six percent of respondents were undecided/other. Last month, the poll reported a 16-point Collins lead. Click here to read the entire poll. Rasmussen conducts automated polls over the telephone. Its most recent poll surveyed 500 voters on May 14. There is a margin of error of +/- four points.

Roll Call, the four-times-a-week newspaper that covers all things Congress, has a special section today reviewing the electoral landscape.

The paper characterizes the race between incumbent GOP Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic Rep. Tom Allen as "leans Republican."

"In what could become the most contentious Senate race in the nation, an incumbent Democratic House Member is challenging a moderate Republican Senator. But Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, has yet to budge any of the publicly released polls against Collins. He's still looking at a 20-point spread," the newspaper said.

The People For the American Way endorsed Rep. Tom Allen, a Democrat, in his race against Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican.

The People for the American Way is a liberal group primarily concerned with civil rights and civil liberties issues.

In a statement, the group said it is backing Allen primarily because Collins supported President Bush's appointees to the Supreme Court: Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito.

Tom Ledue, a Democrat running against Rep. Tom Allen in the Democratic Senate primary, said that Allen had rejected their calls for debates on television and radio.

"I don't know why Tom Allen would decline a chance to speak about his positions on issues that are impacting Mainers. If he truly desires to represent all of Maine, we have the right to hear what he has to say about the rising poverty rates in the state, the devaluation of the U.S. economy, and the degradation of our Constitution," said Ledue's campaign manager, Bob Doak.

Carol Andrews, Allen's spokeswoman, said that their invitations were on dates when Allen would be in Washington. They offered some dates on Saturdays, but Andrews said those were all taken until late June - well after the primary.

Allen's decision is hardly surprising. Frontrunners rarely want to debate because there is not much to gain and only gaffes to be made.

On another note, Ledue raised $18,000 and loaned himself $20,000. I have his campaign finance report and I'll look at it more closely to let you know who has given and how the money has been spent.

The Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group for gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered citizens, announced on Monday that it would begin training organizers to help elect "pro-equality" candidates.

HRC is supporting 10 incumbent senators for re-election, including Senator Susan Collins.

Collins is the only Republican that HRC is supporting. The organization also announced support for four Democratic challengers, including New Hampshire's former governor, Jeanne Shaheen.

Joe Solmonese, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, said that Collins has been supportive of issues important to gay and lesbian voters, including support of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act. The bill, which passed the House last year, would ban discrimination against gay and lesbian employees in the workplace.

On the scorecard from the 109th Congress Tom Allen had a 100% rating to Susan Collins’ 78%.

108th Congress: Tom Allen 100%, Susan Collins 88%

107th Congress: Tom Allen 100%, Susan Collins 86%

Here is the list of the 14 challengers and incumbents.

Signaling that she is in full campaign mode, Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, announced her campaign leadership team and, Felicia Knight, Collins' deputy campaign manager, squabbled with the Maine Democratic Party over who was more or less partisan.

Collins' campaign leadership team includes some wise men of Maine politics. Co-chairmen Merton Henry, an attorney, and Scott Hutchinson, who worked for former Sen. Ed Muskie, a Democrat (a quick search of FEC records shows he has not contributed to a Democratic candidate lately).

Finance Chair Sam Ladd is the president and CEO of Maine Bank and Trust and Treasurer Leo Loiselle, an accountant, round out the team.

The Maine Democratic Party sent out a press release last week chastising Collins for voting for the war in Iraq, the Bush tax cuts and Bush's energy bill. Knight responded with her own release saying that Allen is just another partisan Democrat.

This tit-for-tat means little in the grand scheme of things. Such press releases are meant for reporters, activists and political junkies and that's why we share them here.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, raised nearly $1 million during the first quarter of 2008 as she campaigns for a third term.

She raised $963,260, bringing her total to $5.52 million. She has $4.51 million in cash-on-hand.

As with Rep. Tom Allen's numbers, we need to wait for the Federal Election Commission to post the data to review where Collins raised her money and from whom.

Democratic Rep. Tom Allen reported on Tuesday that he has raised $3.7 million to date in his bid to unseat Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. He has $2.7 million cash-on-hand.

Allen had raised $2.9 million, and his campaign reported today that he raised $700,000 in the first quarter of 2008. He also has spent $1 million on staff, offices and other expenses.

When the Federal Election Commission makes the information public, we will have a better idea of who that money came from. Last month, Allen raised money in California and, in a last-minute plea before the quarter ended March 31, he wanted to raise $250,000. The numbers will tell us if he met that goal.

Carol Andrews, Allen's spokeswoman, said that the campaign raised an average of $250 from 2,654 contributors.

No word just yet on when Collins plans to release their fundraising numbers. We'll post the information here as soon as we get it.

When you win a seat in Congress, you give up a bit of privacy and some dignity. You also cede the right to celebrate your birthday with family and friends. Your birthday becomes another vehicle to raise money.

Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, turns 63 on April 16 (if you're into astrology, he's an Aries), and his wife, Diana, sent a fundraising pitch on Tuesday to potential donors. I got a copy because I'm on Allen's campaign e-mail list.

In her e-mail, Mrs. Allen exhorts donors to pony up because her husband "is going to need 100 percent of his friends’ and supporters’ help in the next six months if he is going to be successful in his challenge to Senator Susan Collins."

Sen. Susan Collins' birthday is on Dec. 7, about a month after the election.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Earlier this week, he held a briefing for reporters about the state of the most competitive Senate races in the country.

I could not attend the press conference because I was listening to Gen. David Petraeus, but later in the afternoon I talked to Schumer in a hallway in the Capitol for about two minutes to get his quick take on the Senate race.

I had heard from a colleague at another publication that Schumer did not put Maine's senate race in the top group of races and I asked him what he said at the press conference regarding Maine's senate race and why he did not include Maine's race in the top tier of Senate races.

Schumer said he broke the races into two tiers. The first tier included Virginia, Colorado, and New Mexico. Those are open seats where a GOP incumbent is retiring and polls show Democrats leading.

The second tier included Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Oregon, the so-called "Blue" states where Republican incumbents face re-election. In those states, the Republican incumbent still leads.

I asked if he was pleased with Allen's campaign (not much of a question, but the elevator door was closing) and Schumer said yes. But then he added, "And he's an independent."

"Independent of what?"

"The President."

I guess it is no surprise there either that Allen and the DSCC strategy is to link Collins' voting record to President Bush.

Schumer and his Republican counterpart, Sen. John Ensign of Nevada, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, likely will have more press conferences as we get closer to November and hopefully there won't be a scheduling conflict.

Last week, Rep. Tom Allen, a Democrat, proposed helping first time home buyers with a tax credit ($3,000 for single filers; $6,000 for joint filers). Washington, D.C., residents have had a similar credit of $5,000 for about the past 10 years, and, for purposes of full disclosure, I took advantage of it in 1998 to help buy my first condo (this was well before the run up in the real estate market).

Allen held a press conference to tout his new idea and to show who would benefit he brings along a young couple, Mike Cuzzi and Heather Quinn. The only thing is that Cuzzi worked for Allen and he worked for Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign through the New Hampshire primary. Quinn worked for Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine.

The day of the press conference, Kevin Kelly, Sen. Susan Collins' press secretary, pointed this out to me. I asked Mark Sullivan, Allen's press secretary, about the connection between Cuzzi and Allen, and Sullivan said it was true.

"We know them and they fit the profile," Sullivan said in a phone interview on Friday. "We were upfront about who they are and introduced them as former employees. This has nothing to do with their status of their employment."

To be sure, there are other young couples with families in Maine who could benefit from Allen's proposal and it is unclear why they could not find a couple without any ties to his congressional office or his campaign.

Laurie Dobson is furious because of a brief report at PoliticalExtra on Wednesday that Gerald Weinand, the administrator of the liberal blog Turn Maine Blue, had banned her from the site.

To be fair, for those readers that might care, here's what Dobson wrote in full.
Click here.

One thing I'd like to do at the blog is pull back the curtain a bit on interaction between reporters and sources. Dobson complained that I didn't call her for comment or post her side of the story. If this were a full-blown story, I definitely would have called her. In a very small world - such as this blog -Weinand not giving Dobson a chance to blog at TMB is news. But it is not news in the big scheme of things.

Laurie Dobson wants to land a spot on the ballot to run as an independent candidate in Maine's U.S. Senate race, but she won't be able to rally support from Netroots activists at TurnMaineBlue .

Gerald Weinand, the site's administrator and prolific contributor, banned Dobson from contributing to the liberal blog because she accused Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, of being corrupt without offering any specific evidence.

Please see Gerald's post below. I've deleted one word Gerald used to describe Dobson's accusation and I've edited some of his spelling errors. I cleaned up the text, too, correcting some typos and such.

A new poll conducted by Rasmussen Reports, a nonpartisan polling firm, shows that Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, leads her likely Democratic opponent, Rep. Tom Allen, by 16 points, 54 to 38 percent.

The poll reported that Collins leads Allen by 20 points among men, 17 points among women, and 20 points among unaffiliated voters.

Collins has a combined 72 percent very and somewhat favorable rating and a 27 combined somewhat and very unfavorable rating. Allen’s numbers are 59 and 34 percent, respectively.

Throughout 2006, pollsters told me that an incumbent's favorable/unfavorable rating is a better indicator than the horse race number because it is a better signal of incumbent strength and weakness.

When a favorable/unfavorable rating drops below 50, it is very dangerous for an incumbent. However, as Allen keeps pointing out, former GOP Sen. Lincoln Chafee’s favorable rating dropped from 76 to 67 percent and Sheldon Whitehouse still trounced him.

There are going to be a lot of polls by outside groups, some reputable, some not. But what we really want to see are the campaigns' internal polls. They are done by reliable and professional pollsters and usually more complete.

The Rasmussen poll was conducted April 1 and surveyed 500 people. The margin of error is 4.5 percent. Rasmussen polls are automated phone calls to potential voters. A recording asks questions and a responder punches in numbers to answer (1 for yes, 2 for no). I've never received a call. If anyone has, let me know if this is accurate.

A political nemesis of Republican Sen. Susan Collins is facing a primary challenge.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, pestered Collins for years to hold hearings into Halliburton and other civilian contractors in Iraq. Collins said any investigations would have been duplicative and that other offices were keeping her committee abreast of waste, fraud and abuse.

Now, Lautenberg, 84, faces a primary challenge from Rep. Rob Andrews, a 50-year-old Democrat, who has been itching to win statewide for the last 10 years (he lost a gubernatorial primary race in 1997).

Lautenberg is heavily favored. He served for 18 years, took a two-year hiatus and won again after Sen. Robert Torrecelli, a Democrat, announced he would not run again in 2002.

Even though Lautenberg is heavily favored and New Jersey's GOP's top picks have decided not to run, primaries are never easy to win and, in politics, anything can happen. That has to have Collins smiling.

From Roll Call on Wednesday, April 2, 2008:

In releasing polling Tuesday that sought to bolster its argument that Americans oppose “card-check” legislation for unionized workers, the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace also released polls on three of the most hotly contested Senate races of the cycle.

In Colorado, the Republican polling firm McLaughlin & Associates found Rep. Mark Udall (D) leading former Rep. Bob Schaffer (R), 44 percent to 32 percent. The survey of 400 likely general election voters taken March 6-9 had a 4.9-point margin of error.

In Maine, Sen. Susan Collins (R) had a solid lead over Rep. Tom Allen (D), 54 percent to 31 percent. The poll of 400 likely voters March 6-9 had a 4.9-point error margin.

In Minnesota, Sen. Norm Coleman (R) had a 46 percent to 40 percent lead over comedian Al Franken (D) in the McLaughlin poll. The pollster interviewed 500 likely voters March 6-9. The poll had a 4.5-point error margin.

The poll found in all three states that non-union households were far more likely to support the Republican candidates, and also suggested that voters are less likely to support candidates who favor a card-check process for union membership, a provision favored by unions and many Democratic leaders.

Okay, I promise that this is my last post on voting attendance.

Former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kans., knows a few things about voting streaks, having served in the House and Senate for 36 years before leaving the Senate in 1996 to run for president.

I had called Dole on Thursday in the hopes that I could get some anecdotes for my story about the Collins-Allen voting attendance issue. Alas, he called me back Friday afternoon from his law firm, Alston & Bird, in Washington, D.C.

Dole could not recall senators going to unusual lengths to get to a vote or to avoid breaking a streak of consecutive votes, but did remember ending a streak.

“As majority leader, I remember having to break a streak because we just could hold the vote open,” he said, adding that he thought it was Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, R-Minn., whose streak he broke.

In today's paper, we took a look at the voting attendance records of Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican, and Rep. Tom Allen, a Democrat. There's a lot of context about this issue that I wasn't able to fit into the story because of space limitations in print.

One point worth mentioning is that the House votes much more frequently than the Senate. Collins has cast more than 3,700 votes in her more than 11 years in the Seante, while Allen has cast more than 7,000 votes over the same period.

The House votes at almost double the rate than the Senate.

Also, for another point of comparison, there are four other House members running for the Senate. Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., has missed 73 votes this term. Allen has missed 42. Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., and Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., squaring off in the primary there, have missed 26 and 19 votes, respectively. Udall's cousin, Tom, is running unopposed for the Democratic nomination in New Mexico. He's missed 22 votes (although he did get started later).

We're going to be hearing a lot about Sen. Susan Collins' voting streak during this campaign season. Maine's junior Republican senator had cast 3,764 consecutive votes as of Friday, March 14, according to her Senate staff.

I plan to write about it at a later date. But I was curious - and have some time during Congress's recess - to find out where she stands in the history of the Senate. Let's just go through the numbers and save the analysis for later.

The record for consecutive votes is held by Sen William Proxmire, a Wisconsin Democrat. He cast 10,150 consecutive votes between 1966 and 1988 (he was first elected in 1957), according to Don Ritchie, the Senate Historian.

Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, R-Maine, cast 2,941 consecutive votes between 1955 and 1968. The streak ended when she was in the hospital recuperating from an operation.

One thing Ritchie said to keep in mind was that the Senate voted much less in the 1950s and 1960s than it does today.

In an interview with The Hill newspaper today, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is the Senate Democrats' chief election strategist, fundraiser and recruiter (he is head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee), had this to say about the race between Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine:

Q: What about Maine, where Rep. Tom Allen (D) is challenging Sen. Susan Collins (R)? Can you beat a popular incumbent Republican in a blue state as you did in 2006 against Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.)?

A: Of all the Republican incumbents we’re going after, every single one— even those in the redder states— she is the most popular. But it is a bluer state. Allen is one of the best candidates we have, and we are very hopeful that we’ll have a repeat of the Rhode Island race, because Susan Collins has voted with Bush an overwhelming proportion of the time.

To read the full story, click here.

Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, and Tom Ledue, an educator from South Berwick, formally jumped into the Democratic primary when they both submitted enough signatures to get on the ballot.

They are vying to challenge Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, has a "clear advantage" over Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, according to Stuart Rothenberg, the editor and publisher of the independent Rothenberg Political Report, which analyzes House and Senate races.

Rothenberg's latest report, sent to subscribers on Feb. 22, ranked Senate races according to competitiveness - . He predicted Democrats were likely to win in Virginia and win an open seat in New Mexico.

Rothenberg wrote that Allen "should be a formidable foe for Collins, and he'll try to tie her to President Bush and national Republicans. But early polling shoes that the senator is highly regarded in the state, and her record is moderate enough to give her amunition to answer Democratic attacks."

"Collins is vulnerable primarily because of the political environment and and presidential race ... The race is worth watching, but Allen has plenty of work to do."

We have a story in today's paper about a controversial video that Sen. Susan Collins is using to raise money for her campaign. The web link was accidentally left off the story, so if you want to watch the video click here.

Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic Rep. Tom Allen are continuing to use the war in Iraq to criticize the other's record.

For weeks now, the Allen campaign has attacked Collins for failing to investigate allegations of waste, fraud and abuse among civilian contractors, such as Halliburton, operating in Iraq during the first few years of the war, when she was chairing the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. flew in to Portland today to endorse Allen and criticize Collins' oversight record at a press conference at the Holiday Inn by the Bay. Lautenberg served on the panel when Collins was the chairwoman and repeatedly pressed her to hold more hearings.

Collins' campaign sought to preempt Lautenberg's appearance by providing reporters with a six-page document defending Collins' work on the committee.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., will campaign on Thursday in Portland for Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, who is looking to unseat incumbent GOP Sen. Susan Collins.

Allen and Lautenberg will hold a press conference at 11 a.m. Thursday, in the Rhode Island Room of the Holiday Inn By the Bay, in Portland, according to a press release sent by the Allen campaign.

Allen and Lautenberg will seek to hammer Collins for her performance as chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee from 2003 to 2006.

As various government agencies and the media uncovered instances of graft, waste, fraud and abuse related to Halliburton's reconstruction and logistical contracts to perform work in Iraq for the Army, Collins issued no subpoenas regarding the role of civilian contractors in Iraq. Moreover, she held just one hearing in 2006 about the reconstruction effort.

Lautenberg proved to be Collins' nemesis while she was chairwoman, sending her multiple letters asking her to hold hearings.

Here's the text of Allen's press release:

Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, will announce on Thursday that he raised $813,000 between October and December 31, 2007, and that he has more than $2.5 million in cash-on-hand, said his spokeswoman Carol Andrews.

Allen apparently targeted small donors and relied on the Internet. He raised money from 5,000 donors who gave an average of $25, Andrews said.

When the reports are filed on Thursday with the Federal Election Commission, it will be interesting to see the breakdown of who gave and how much.

Congressional Quarterly, a magazine for lawmakers, aides and Washington insiders, reported that Senator Susan Collins, R-Maine, accepted $10,000 from Wal-Mart's political action committee.

We'll know more tomorrow when all other candidates for federal office are required by federal law to file their campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission today – unless the FEC grants them an extension.

Sen.Susan Collins, R-Maine, released a preliminary campaign finance report.

She has $3.9 million in cash on hand, which she can use to hire staff, run television advertisements, conduct polling, and send direct mail pieces to voters.

She raised more than $963,000 from October to December 2007.

Candidates for federal office must file their campaign finance reports with the Federal Election Commission by tomorrow, Jan. 31. We will break down the numbers further when they arrive.