The only Republican running is Scott D’Amboise, who does not have the profile one would expect of a Senate candidate (an ophthalmic technician/small business owner who used to serve as a Town Selectman) but appears to be solid on the issues without being offensive to Downeaster sensibilities. http://www.damboiseforsenate.com/ More impressively, he had raised over $470,000 for the race as of December 31, which is almost 5 times the amount raise by the five declared Democrat candidates combined. http://www.thegreenpapers.com/G12/ME#S1
D’Amboise claims that no one else will be able to meet the filing requirements by March 15, irrespective of how much money they spend; I am skeptical, since if D’Amboise and five Democrats (some of whom are nobodies) were able to gather enough signatures, someone with high name ID and some money should be able to do it quickly. I think you’ll see some more prominent Republicans making a run.
On the RAT side, I would not be surprised if both congressmen decided that they couldn’t pass up a once-in-a-generation open-seat Senate race in Maine. That will open up both House seats, and we should be competitive in both (and could be favored in the ME-02 if Raye stays in that race instead of switching to the Senate race).
With the current field of candidates, the ME Senate race is a toss-up; we’ll have to wait to find out who runs before we can handicap the race for real.
However, I'm sure the "powers that be" in the Maine GOP will never accept Scott D’Amboise as their candidate. They're probably getting together right now to agree on a consensus RINO that's "electable" (if not and mulitple RINOs run, D’Amboise has an opening and could win the nomination by plurality)
I'm sure some useful idiot freepers will agree with the party bosses and tell us that only Democrat-lite can "win" in Maine. As fieldmarshaldj often points out, notice these standards never apply to Democrats running in heavily Republican states. If they did, RAT officials would have done everything possible to block Nick Begich, Kay Hagan, Tim Johnson, etc. from being nominated and endlessly lecture Dem voters "a liberal CANNOT win this state! You may not like it, but this state voted for George W. Bush twice! Unfortunately, a pro-life, pro-gun, anti-illegal immigration, smaller government DINO is the best we're gonna elect in a state like this. Vote for our DINO or the Republicans will win!!"