Adam Cote Under Fire

The Democratic contenders for the 1st CD seat have all trained the fire towards Adam Cote in recent days. For Cote, this should be construed as a positive development. It indicates that the other candidates in the race view him as a legitimate threat and are trying to halt his momentum. Since there has no public polling done for this race, you might be asking what are they basing this assessment of Cote's candidacy on?  

Well, certainly there has been a lot of positive feedback about Cote from individual voters. The other candidates might have sensed this several weeks ago and decided that Cote was going to make a big move towards the end of the primary. Cote has also raised a lot of money for a first time candidate, which has allowed him to spread a positive message on the TV and radio airwaves. He has the benefit of having served in the armed forces and he comes across as a very thoughtful person on the issues.  

But, there is another possibility to consider. Four of the Democratic candidates (Adam Cote, Mark Lawrence, Chellie Pingree, and Ethan Strimling) have hired consulting firms to conduct polling for them. Now, there is no way of knowing if any of this private polling has been done recently, but I would suspect that at least the resource rich Pingree campaign is still paying for polling.  

The polling, in all likelihood, shows a very positive upward trend for Cote and the other campaigns are probably fearful that Cote is on his way to surpassing their numbers. I have heard that Pingree's campaign views Cote as its most viable opponent and that makes sense in light of them recently sending out a mailer to voters attacking Cote's record. The Pingree campaign is not alone in attacking Cote. Mark Lawrence and Ethan Strimling have criticized Cote for accepting a contribution from BIPAC, a leading business PAC that has members of Halliburton, Exxon-Mobil, and other 'contemptible' companies on its board.  

Wally Edge from PolitickerME reports that there has been a steady barrage of anti-Cote letters to the editor and a general word of mouth campaign designed to bring down Cote. Here is that story: http://politickerme.com/wallyedgeme/1759/incoming... Recently, Cote has also been a constant fixture in the news, but not necessarily for good reasons. The Portland Press Herald has run several stories on Cote that might not go over well with Democratic primary voters. For example, the Strimling campaign has claimed that Cote has received greater financial support from Republicans than Democrats during his campaign.  

The most recent story in the Press Herald focuses on independent expenditures that have been made on Cote's behalf by a national group that represents the credit union industry. The group has poured more than $ 112,000 into the 1st CD race to help elect Cote (http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=192609&ac=). This story should not do much damage itself, but I have to believe that the attacks on Cote over the past week have done some damage to his brand.  

Even with Cote's improbable rise, one would have to assume that Chellie Pingree is still the frontrunner. That is why it is so interesting that Strimling, Lawrence, and Brennan all seem to be making negative attacks against Cote, not Pingree.  I would guess that part of the reason for this development is that Cote is an easier target to attack. I say this not because Cote is a bad candidate, but because he is an unorthodox Democratic candidate. It is seen as acceptable to attack Cote for not being a strong enough Democrat, but it is hard to attack Pingree because she has impeccable credentials as a liberal progressive. Pingree is sitting pretty right now. She is the undisputed frontrunner, but she is not being attacked like a frontrunner.