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EAST MACHIAS, Maine -- Ron Paul has gained 83 votes on Mitt Romney following a Republican presidential caucus in eastern Maine, where voting last week had been postponed due to bad weather. Romney still holds a 156-vote lead over Paul in statewide totals. Paul received 163 votes in Saturday's Washington County caucus, where Republicans from more than two dozen towns gathered to cast their votes. Romney received 80 votes. Rick Santorum got 57 votes and Newt Gingrich received four votes.

Documents obtained by The Maine Wire show the Maine State Housing Authority has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars per year on extraneous expenses – including gift cards, catering, travel, education, and consultants. Data show MSHA made several high-dollar expenditures to Hannaford between 2008 and 2010, totaling $59,000. According to a source at Maine Housing, these payments were for gift cards that were handed out to employees, and many of the gift cards remain unaccounted for. While an estimated 6,500 Maine families sit on a waiting list for affordable housing, and while federal cutbacks in low-income heating assistance mean needy...

On Monday, Senators Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine seemingly surrendered to President Obama on the contraception mandate, before the fight had begun. “It appears that changes have been made that provide women’s health services without compelling Catholic organizations in particular to violate the beliefs and tenets of their faith,” Snowe said. Collins made a similar statement: “While I will carefully review the details of the president’s revised proposal, it appears to be a step in the right direction.” But there may be more fight in them yet. Although the senators support forcing insurance companies to cover contraception, they...

Last Saturday, the Maine Republican Party declared Mitt Romney the winner of the Maine caucuses. The non-binding caucuses were a low turnout affair, but Romney's victory over Ron Paul - who he beat by less than 200 votes - was a chance for Romney to reclaim some momentum in the wake of Rick Santorum's three-state sweep four days earlier. Now, however, it looks like Romney could ultimately be stripped of that victory. If that happens, it will be the second time this cycle Romney has been stripped of a caucus victory. The first came in Iowa, where Santorum was declared...

The Maine Republican Party is reviewing its numbers from the presidential caucuses as pressure grows for a recount. click image to enlargeMitt Romney, left, was declared the winner of the Maine caucuses by a small margin, but supporters of Ron Paul, right, allege bias. Related headlines Waldo County GOP calls for Webster's censure Maddow blasts Maine GOP for not counting all the caucus votes Paul campaign: Don't need recount, will win delegates Select images available for purchase in the Maine Today Photo Store An email sent to county and town chairman this afternoon asks the local officials to resubmit vote...

The Maine Republican Party is being urged to reconsider its announcement that presidential candidate Mitt Romney won a preference poll of state caucus-goers, the Bangor Daily News reports. The Maine GOP said on Saturday that Romney had defeated Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, 39 percent to 36 percent, or less than 200 votes, in the state’s weeklong caucuses. To be counted, party officials said the meetings had to be concluded by Feb. 11. According to the newspaper, some communities that followed caucus procedure were still not counted in the final tabulation. In addition, one county was forced to postpone its caucus...

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 13, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Within weeks, the top lawyers in a dozen states may file a federal lawsuit against the Obama administration’s controversial requirement that all insurance plans include access to abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization, the attorney general of Nebraska told LifeSiteNews. Jon Bruning told LifeSiteNews.com that 12 states had signed onto a scathing critique of the mandate and were preparing to take more serious action. Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning On Friday, ten state attorneys general addressed a scathing letter to President Obama, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis....

The move by President Obama on Friday to alter his rule requiring birth-control coverage, shifting the mandate from some religious-based employers directly to insurance plans, hasn’t satisfied the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and some other critics. But Obama’s revised rule appears to have won over Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine. Both had called for changes to the original rule despite their support in the past for a bill with a similar objective.

Rep. Ron Paul not conceding Maine voteBy Josh Lederman - 02/12/12 12:46 PM ET Rep. Ron Paul is not conceding the GOP’s Maine caucuses, which state party officials and major networks called Saturday for rival Mitt Romney. With 84 percent of precincts reporting, Romney has 39 percent to Paul's 36 percent, and Maine GOP Chairman Charlie Webster declared Romney the winner Saturday night, following a week-long series of caucuses. But in Washington County, where Paul had expected to perform well, the caucus was postponed until Feb. 18 due to an expected snowstorm. Washington County Republican Chairman Chris Gardner told the...

Yesterday, the Maine Republican Party declared Mitt Romney the winner of Maine's caucuses, which were conducted over multiple days. Romney got 39% (2,190 votes) and Ron Paul got 36% (1,996). Rick Santorum finished third and Newt Gingrich fourth. Yet in a message to supporters last night, the Ron Paul campaign suggested at chicanery over Maine's decision to declare Mitt Romney the winner before all the votes were counted. Campaign Manager John Tate called the Washington County GOP decision to postpone the caucus for snow an "excuse." Tate even mocked the decision after the predicted three to four inches of snow...

Appearing on CNN's State of the Union today, Rick Santorum told host Candy Crawley that his loss yesterday to Mitt Romney in CPAC's annual straw poll was because he didn't pay for votes. From Politico: "Well, you know, those straw polls at CPAC... for years Ron Paul has won those because he trucks in a lot of people, pays for their tickets, and they come in and vote and they leave. We didn't do that, we don't do that. i don't try to rig straw polls." Pressed further on whether or not he felt Romney had rigged the poll, Santorum...

PORTLAND, Maine — Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney narrowly edged Texas Congressman Ron Paul in Maine’s nonbinding GOP presidential preference poll on Saturday, ending a string of defeats for the Republican front-runner. According to unofficial results announced Saturday evening by Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster, Romney took 39 percent of votes during statewide caucuses held during the last few weeks. Paul finished second at 36 percent. “It’s good news. I’m hopeful this ends Romney’s little slide,” Maine House Speaker Robert Nutting said shortly after the announcement. “Romney is the best candidate to beat President Obama in the fall.” Peter...

<p>Maine – Texas Congressman Ron Paul has taken a commanding lead over his GOP rivals in the Maine Caucus heading into its final day on Saturday, hoping to extinguish Rick Santorum’s modest campaign winning streak and launch a comeback of his own in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.</p>

Remember, There's Maine "I think I have a natural connection with the people of Maine. Mainers tend to be fiscally conservative, and as governor of a state next door, Massachusetts, they know that I was the guy that balanced the budget all four years and lowered taxes 19 times. So I think I've got a good chance of getting support from our friends in Maine." -- Mitt Romney in an interview with WCSH of Portland, Maine. Maine Republicans will on Saturday evening announce the results of precinct-level straw polls taken at 36 of 39 caucuses being held across the state's...

Twenty-One Republican Candidates Take Steps Toward ‘Young Gun' Status Washington- The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) today announced its newest round of ‘On the Radar' candidates. By reaching the second step of the four-step ‘Young Guns' program, these Republican candidates have reached the fundamental benchmarks to place them on the road to victory. Now, these 21 candidates are ready to take on the Democrat establishment and return fiscal sanity to Washington. "These candidates have worked hard to meet the benchmarks that have been laid out before them and are determined to hold Washington Democrats accountable this November," said NRCC Chairman...

Mitt Romney is in danger of losing his fourth straight state in Saturday's caucuses in Maine, where he and his allies have been all but absent from TV. That's no coincidence. Over the past month, he has won in states where he and an allied super PAC, called Restore Our Future, have pounded his rivals with millions of dollars in negative ads. But he has tended to lose big when he has stopped using his power to crush other contenders by spending a ton of money — particularly on TV.

Kim Pettengill, GOP state committeewoman from Kennebec County, said she didn't know about two of them coming until she got calls Friday evening from the campaigns of former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, of Pennsylvania, saying they would send representatives to Saturday's caucus. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's son Tagg Romney already had been expected to attend. More than 300 Republicans from across Kennebec County attended the caucus. GOP activists were asked to hold local caucuses between Feb. 4 and 11, and more than 30 of them were being held Saturday statewide. Republicans from...

LAS VEGAS — Newt Gingrich is wooing NASCAR voters. As he charts a possible course to the Republican nomination, aides say Gingrich will paint frontrunner Mitt Romney as the candidate of the PGA golf tour while the former House speaker pursues the blue collar mantle of Dale Earnhardt. It’s a strategy that exploits the class warfare Gingrich professes to oppose. Still, it could pay dividends once the GOP race again swings South. Gingrich sees delegate-rich Texas as a firewall in April. But he must slog through more than 30 contests before that....

BANGOR, Maine — They tried to play nice, but it was pretty clear at Saturday’s Penobscot County super caucus that the Republican candidates vying for U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe’s senate seat are not happy with her actions in Washington.Snowe, a three-term senator and former eight-term U.S. House member, was the first to speak at the political gathering of Republicans from 25 municipalities. They came together at Husson University to elect delegates to the state convention in May and participate in a presidential preference straw poll.“Regardless of who the nominee is, come 2013 we will have a Republican back in the...

Wedding bells will soon be ringing for Sen. Susan Collins. The Maine Republican is engaged to Thomas Daffron, 73, the chief operating officer for the D.C.-based Jefferson Consulting Group. According to the consulting group’s website, Daffron served as chief of staff to former Sens. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) and William Cohen (R-Maine). He was also a speechwriter for the late Sen. Charles Percy (R-Ill.), a campaign manager for former GOP presidential candidate Elizabeth Dole, and a consultant during all three of Collins’ Senate campaigns. Collins, 59, has never been married.

If former House Speaker Newt Gingrich continues in the Republican primaries, not only is he doing more good than harm, he may be the only candidate left who can save the Republican Party. The Republican establishment is bound and determined that it is going to impose a Mitt Romney on us. Conservatives do not want former Gov. Mitt Romney. You see, we have danced this dance before. We had Sen. John McCain shoved down our throats in 2008. How did that work out for us? We have George W. Bush, who barely won his races, and before that we had...

Updated Full Primary/Caucus Calendar Jan 3 Iowa (caucus) 28 Delegates 28 Unbound - Allocation at State Convention Jan 10 New Hampshire (primary) 12 Delegates 12 Bound - Proportional with 10% threshold Jan 21 South Carolina (primary) 25 Delegates 25 Bound - Winner-take-all per statewide vote Jan 31 Florida (primary) 50 Delegates 50 Bound - winner-take-all per statewide vote Feb 4 Nevada (caucus) 28 Delegates 28 Bound - Allocated on results of primary Feb 4-11 Maine (caucus) 24 Delegates 24 Unbound - Convention elects delegates Feb 7 Colorado (caucus) 36 Delegates 36 Unbound - Allocated at State Convention Minnesota (caucus) 40...

It’s a two-man race in the Pine Tree State. But the contest isn’t between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich; it’s between Romney and Ron Paul. In 2008, Paul won third place in Maine’s caucuses with 18 percent of the vote. But he was only 178 votes shy of tying John McCain for second. And this year, with an extra push, Paul might just be able to win the state outright. “The Paul campaign has really dedicated the resources to the state that make it possible for them to win the caucuses,” says Ken Lindell, chairman of the Maine Republican Liberty...

The Republican establishment is pulling out all the stops to try to keep Newt Gingrich from becoming the party’s nominee for president of the United States — and some are not letting the facts get in their way. Among the claims going out through the mass media in Florida, on the eve of that state’s primary election, is that Newt Gingrich “resigned in disgrace” as speaker of the House of Representatives as a result of unethical conduct involving the diversion of tax-exempt money. Mitt Romney is calling on Gingrich to release “all of the records” from the congressional investigation. But...

(CNSNews.com) – Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has pledged multiple times that he would repeal and replace President Barack Obama’s signature health care reform law. However, his repeal proposals are light on specific details. “If I were president, day one I will take action to repeal Obamacare. It's bad medicine. It's bad economy. I'll repeal it,” Romney said at the Jan. 26 GOP debate in Florida. “And I believe the people -- I believe the people of each state should be able to craft programs that they feel are best for their people.” However, Romney’s plans...

Updated Jan. 31, 2012: Support for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney has remained one of the few constants during the Republican nomination race. But as contenders to Mr. Romney have emerged and then faded, the GOP still seems hesitant to embrace him. The most recent candidate to play the Anyone But Romney role is former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who recently finished first in the party’s South Carolina primary. The National Post’s graphics team takes a look at the ups and downs of the race so far. [great grapics at source]

Newt Gingrich is fighting for nothing less than the soul of the Republican Party, says political analyst Howard Fineman. Fineman’s assessment came as he discussed the Florida primary race and the GOP presidential contest in general with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and former national Republican Chairman Michael Steele on “Hardball with Chris Matthews” Monday night. Noting that Gingrich has vowed to stay in the presidential contest through the national GOP convention in Tampa, Fla., in August, Fineman observed that some of the former House speaker’s friends "strongly advised him to go all the way to the convention, and they didn't have...

AUGUSTA — Lawmakers on Monday began reviewing a bill that would allow state employees to leave guns locked in their cars as long as they have a concealed weapons permit. The bill is designed to amend a hotly debated bill passed last year. That bill, LD 35, allowed private workers to keeps guns stowed in their vehicle. This proposal, LD 1603, sponsored by Rep. Dale Crafts, R-Lisbon Falls, would broaden the law to include state employees. The current proposal was introduced as an emergency bill. While it focuses on state employees, most of the testimony in front of the Legislature's...

1) He's not a conservative. There have been a lot of conservatives who've talked a good game during the primaries and then have let us down in D.C., but if Mitt Romney becomes the nominee and gets elected, some people seem to be hoping that he'll be the first Republican moderate to go to D.C. and turn into a fire-breathing conservative. Based on his record, if Mitt Romney is nominated, he will be the least conservative candidate since Nixon. >snip 2) He doesn't believe in anything politically other than Mitt Romney. What conservative cause has Mitt Romney ever fought like...

Sarah Palin now on Hannity busting the GOP-e for lying about Newt!! Newt up next!!

The 2012 Republican primary race has passed well beyond the rabbit hole into some extra-dimensional bizarro world where up is down, black is white and the allies of the candidate who disavowed Reaganism would have us believe that the leader of the “second stage of the Reagan Revolution” is somehow insufficiently Reaganesque. It’s no secret that the GOP establishment backs Mitt Romney. The same folks who gave us John McCain and Bob Dole have picked their winner. When Mr. Romney is down, their panic shows. They start floating desperate ideas like late-entry candidates or a brokered convention. They also pull...

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was joined by President Ronald Reagan's son Michael on Monday morning in Jacksonville, Florida. Michael Reagan is supporting Mr. Gingrich for the presidency and helping Mr. Gingrich fend off critics who say that the former speaker did not have a politically close relationship with his father. "One of the reasons I was glad Michael agreed to come on is that there’s been a question raised by the establishment as to whether or not I was really in any way active with Ronald Reagan," said Gingrich to a group of supporters in meeting room...

With a gunshot wound to his stomach, Rafael Encarnacion, 22, crawled out of a back bedroom of a Vassalboro home early Tuesday. The man identified by police as the trigger-man, Joseph L. Gagnon, 55, of Vassalboro, told his brother that he shot Encarnacion in self-defense with a “homemade gun” because Encarnacion was threatening him and his family, according to a police report filed in Kennebec County Superior Court. Gagnon, who has yet to be charged in connection with the shooting, turned himself in to Hallowell Police following the shooting, which was reported at 12:30 a.m. at Gagnon’s home on Whitehouse...

Even those who believe themselves devoted patriots (including devout Christians) may foolishly be enticed by the powers that be, into violating Americans' sacred and essential Popular and national Sovereignties. It has been happening for a long time, now. People who believe in a Sovereign nation called the United States of America are being duped into not only violating the mandates of our Constitution, but even worse, into nullifying our own Declaration of Independence from the control of foreign, kleptocratic power. This is the tragedy for all, of those who foolishly follow the stratagems of those seeking hegemony over us via...

Paul LePage, the Republican governor of Maine, mentioned an uncomfortable truth in a radio address this month: Maine has more welfare recipients than income tax payers. Democrats challenged the accuracy of this assertion. The Bangor Daily News fact-checked LePage and discovered that 445,074 Mainers paid state income tax, while 453,194 received some sort of state aid.

EDDINGTON, Maine — A man who broke into a home on Riverside Drive on Saturday afternoon and was shot in the foot by the homeowner is now behind bars on a charge of felony burglary, Deputy Chief Troy Morton of the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office said. Darren Seidell, 30, a local transient originally from Florida, was discovered in the home of Peter and Carol Roderick when she returned home from grocery shopping at around 2:45 p.m., the deputy chief said. “Peter was on the property but in another building,” Morton said. “When his wife came home he went to help...

WATERVILLE, Maine — The search for 20-month-old Ayla Reynolds continued on Monday as the Maine Warden Service, state and local police investigators and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents combed the area to find the girl who was last seen Friday in her father’s home on Violette Avenue. The warden service began searching the surface and banks of Messalonskee Stream by plane, boat and foot on Monday, expanding the search area from the weekend, Waterville Police Chief Joseph Massey said during a press conference Monday afternoon. “It was logical considering [the stream’s] proximity to Violette Ave.,” Massey said, adding that the...

California ...has one-eighth of the nation's population but one-third of all welfare recipients. ... The main reason California has such a high percentage of the nation's welfare cases is because it is one of the few states that continue to provide welfare checks for children once their parents are no longer eligible.

El Mercado salad? $2.34. A cup of white chicken chili? $1.55. Portland diners could get used to this. For a special lunch on what for many Portlanders will be their first workday of 2012, four city restaurants are pricing their menu items according to their calorie counts. At a penny per calorie, the Jan. 3 promotion will cut some plate prices by more than half at Sebago Brewing Co., DiMillo’s On The Water, El Rayo Taqueria and Spartan Grill.

AUGUSTA -- Guns, and whether they can be stored in your vehicle at work, will once again be debated by lawmakers in the upcoming session. Rep. Dale Crafts, R-Lisbon, is seeking to modify a controversial bill signed into law in June that allows those with a concealed firearm permit to store a gun in their vehicle at work, as long as the vehicle is locked and the firearm is not visible. Crafts has submitted new legislation, L.D. 1603, to extend the same right to state workers as those who work in the private sector. The bill drew intense debate in...

New England lawmakers are asking the U.S. Commerce Secretary for an emergency assessment of the abundance of cod in the Gulf of Maine. ... The six lawmakers also are asking Bryson to freeze the cod catch limit at its current level until the study is complete. Fishermen are facing devastating cuts in cod catch next year

There are more Mainers receiving welfare benefits than there are income tax filers paying taxes, Republican Gov. Paul LePage said Saturday. ... the governor said in his weekly radio address that Maine had 453,000 people receiving welfare benefits in 2010. At the same, he said, the state had only 445,000 people who paid taxes.

In case you haven ' t heard about this guy before, his name will stick in your mind! The new Maine Governor, Paul LePage is making New Jersey 's Chris Christie look like an enabler. He isn't afraid to say what he thinks. Judging by the comments, every time he opens his mouth, his popularity goes up. He brought down the house at his inauguration when he shook his fist toward the media box and said, "You ' re on notice! I've inherited a financially-troubled State to run. Observe...cover what we do...but don ' t whine if I don '...

A Navy shipbuilder in Maine says it had to fumigate a warehouse and part of a warship because a shipment of parts from the West Coast contained about two-dozen venomous black widow spiders. ... The shipyard is confident exterminators eliminated any spiders that weren’t stomped.

Maine’s congressional delegation is supporting Gov. Paul LePage’s request seeking a federal fisheries disaster declaration to provide aid to Maine’s groundfishing fleet. ... His request followed a recent report documenting a sharp decline in Maine’s fishing fleet due to changes in federal fishery management plans.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, is financially outpacing her Republican and Democratic challengers, according to her recently released campaign finance report. Snowe had more than $3.2 million on hand as of Sept. 30, according to the report filed with the Federal Election Commission. During the third quarter of 2011, Snowe's campaign raised $792,305 and spent $320,716, the report said. Snowe is seeking her fourth term in the Senate, but unlike in previous years, the moderate is facing challenges from both Democrats and within her own party. Scott D'Amboise, one of two tea party-affiliated GOP challengers, raised "'six figures," but will not...

In a few 2012 Senate races, tea- party challenges seemed almost inevitable. Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe (R), Virginia Senate candidate George Allen(R), Indiana Sen. Dick Lugar (R), and Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) were all expected to face tough competition on the right. But so far, serious challenges in all three races have failed to materialize. Maybe it’s a case of tea-party groups firing too early. Some of these incumbents have been targets since before last fall’s election. That’s given them plenty of time to react. They also know to take these challenges seriously, because they saw firsthand the damage...

BANGOR, Maine — Canadian shoppers arrived early Thursday to get in line at Walmart and were surprised that the doors didn’t open until midnight. Maine has a law that bars big box stores from opening on Thanksgiving. “We thought it opened at 10 p.m.,” as advertised nationally, said Wanda Myers, a Saint John, New Brunswick, resident who arrived at the Brewer Walmart Supercenter at 6 a.m. Thursday and stood first in one of the store’s two lines. A convoy of Canadian shoppers drove 3½ hours to get to the Bangor area for Black Friday deals. “I was absolutely shocked” that...

Milestone marked on stealthy destroyer under construction at Maine's Bath Iron Works DAVID SHARP Associated Press BATH, Maine — Two daughters and son of the late Adm. Elmo "Bud" Zumwalt helped Bath Iron Works mark a milestone Thursday in construction of the largest ship to be built in more than two decades at the shipyard. The ship's co-sponsors, Ann Zumwalt and Mouzetta Zumwalt-Weathers, were accompanied by their brother, retired Marine Lt. Col James G. Zumwalt, at a ceremony marking the "laying of the keel," a Navy tradition dating to the days of sail, when the ship's keel served as the...

The former senator and envoy says it will likely take a major scandal to trigger a change. PORTLAND - Like most Americans, former U.S. Sen. George J. Mitchell said, he tends to look at the past through rose-tinted glasses. But even with that in mind, partisanship in Washington wasn't as bad when he was in the Senate as it is now, Mitchell said Wednesday morning. Mitchell said the structure of the political system leads to the heightened partisan atmosphere -- and that's responsible for the record low approval rate of 9 percent for Congress in a recent poll. "It's worse...