Maine Senate race: The other candidates

As the Susan Collins vs. Tom Allen race heats up, four other challengers have emerged in the race.

All are serious, and actively gathering the required signatures needed to appear on the ballot.

Independent candidate Herbert Hoffman of Oqunquit

Today, Herbert Hoffman of Ogunquit announced that he will run as an independent in the race.

Hoffman previously served as a senior staffer for Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s presidential bid. Kucinich dropped out of the race last month.

Hoffman said he is running, because the nation is in crisis and his candidacy is necessary for the defense of the Constitution. His work with Kucinich’s campaign centered around this issue.

He said he wants to address the economic issues and provide health care to everybody. He is pushing increased government accountability. He promises not to take any money from PACs or big corporations.

“I will be the voice for those positions which do not conform to the messages of the entrenched Establishment,” he said during his campaign announcement in Augusta today.

He said Kucinich’s views resemble his own – and they share one of the same central themes.

“Impeachment is the only tool left to the Congress that can stop this march towards fascism, this marriage of government and large corporations to control the will of the people,” he said. “Maine’s Congressional delegation has not acted to correct this state of affairs.”

He said he is running as an independent because he does not want to conform to the views of either party.

“As an independent, I have an independent voice,” Hoffman said.

Independent candidate Laurie Dobson of Kennebunkport

Laurie Dobson of Kennebunkport announced her candidacy last fall. She is also running as an independent.

Dobson said she is running because she wants to bring an end to the Iraq War and provide free medical coverage to those who have served.

She also is calling for impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, and openly criticized Allen for his lack of support on the impeachment issue.

On her Web site, she calls for the ousting of U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who she said has allowed war funding bills to get through and blocked the impeachment efforts.

Another central issue of her campaign involves the economy. Her solution is to institute a 5-year ban on all home foreclosures.

"We can work out an arrangement with the mortgage banks -- and many of them have already gone bankrupt. But we cannot let a financial crisis destroy people's lives, the way it did in the 1930s," she said on her Web site.

Dobson recently announced her support for Hillary Clinton -- the "least worst" presidential candidate. She criticized Barack Obama's promotion of bipartisanship.

“Senator Obama seems to believe that great evils can always be dealt with through bipartisan cooperation,” she wrote in a release. “That ignores the reality of the Bush-Cheney administration's gutting of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.”

Republican candidate Ed Cohen

PolitickerME first met Ed Cohen when Ron Paul visited the State House at the beginning of the month. When asked what he stood for, he just pointed in the general direction of where Paul had been speaking and said: “What he said.”

Cohen is running as a Republican against Collins. He calls her a “crook” for her support of the Iraq War on the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Cohen does not have a Web site – at least not one that shows up prominently on Google searches – but he was actively gathering signatures at the Republican caucuses.

In 2004, Cohen was a Democrat and was a delegate for Dennis Kucinich at the National Convention.

Democratic candidate Tom Ledue of Springvale

Tom Ledue of Springvale is challenging Allen for the Democratic nomination.

In his remarks to the Westbrook caucus, he calls himself an “uncommon candidate.” His goal, he said, is to bridge the gap between the public and the government.

“I am not a career politician or a millionaire. I am not an incumbent. I do not come from a politically powerful family,” he said in his remarks.

Instead: “I am a Mainer who has lost patience with our political status quo.”

He criticized the economy, health care and lack of efforts to address climate change.

He promises a proactive approach to solving these problems. He said he would make a goal to reduce poverty by 50 percent in 5 years. He wants to cut carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. He wants to shift national subsidy priorities to small businesses, and re-prioritize federal spending.

“This will safeguard American jobs while protecting foreign workers and the global environment,” he said in his remarks.

Finally, he said he would like to leave Iraq in a responsible manner.

“I believe that we need aggressive leadership in Washington because there is no time for business as usual,” he said.