Elections were held in Maine in September, and the party that won the governorship would go on to win the White House two months later nearly every time from 1840 through 1932.

But Maine didn’t much like Franklin Roosevelt — it was one of only two states that never voted for FDR — and would later move its elections to November with the rest of the country. The phrase was no longer true and became something of a joke.

But this year Maine is proving that it might have a little juice left yet, and that it still knows how to be ahead of the curve.

The state of Pennsylvania — and indeed a few states in the rust belt — are considering changing how they allocate their electoral votes in presidential elections, and they are following the Maine model.

The Constitution outlines the process by which we choose our president. States are allocated a number of “electors” equal to the number of senators and members of Congress they possess, and the election is determined by which candidate wins a majority of those electors.

But the Constitution does not specify how states allocate their electors. Forty-eight states have chosen a “winner take all” system, whereby the candidate who wins the popular vote in their state is entitled to all of the state’s electors. Win California in 2012 and you will receive 55 electoral votes. Win Texas and you will get 38.

Maine and Nebraska, however, go with a different method. These states award two votes to the winner of the state’s popular vote and then award the rest based on which candidate won each individual congressional district. This is an entirely different, and in my mind much more appropriate, way of expressing the will of a state.

It is unfortunate that so many conservative voters in deeply Democratic states such as California or Massachusetts have no ability to make their voices heard in the electoral college. It is equally unfortunate that so many liberal voters in deeply Republican states such as Texas and Georgia do not have that voice either.

In Pennsylvania, there has been a deep tension about presidential politics for decades. There is an enormous disconnect between the population centers of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and the rest of the state. The cities, based on their population and deep partisan lean, end up deciding all the elections and speaking for the rest of the state, and a lot of Pennsylvanians have resented that for a long time.

Their solution is to adopt the Maine and Nebraska model. This would preserve the voice of the cities — the people inside them are represented in multiple congressional districts and thus exert a powerful influence — but it would also give a voice to the rest of the state and allow them to register their choice for who they want.

There is no question that the move, dreamed up by Pennsylvania Republicans, is a partisan one designed to help elect a Republican president. But that doesn’t make it wrong, and were this system implemented in all 50 states, the Democrats would benefit just as much as the Republicans.

Right now, presidential candidates spend nearly all of their time in half a dozen “battleground states,” overwhelm them with money and volunteers and ignore the rest of the country.

Making a change like this nationally would give an incentive for Republican candidates to show up in New York, Washington, Oregon, California or any of the other solidly blue states.

It would give similar incentive for Democrats to show up in the Deep South, the Midwest and many of the solidly red states.

Candidates of both parties have been writing off entire states and indeed entire areas of the country for decades. Campaigning nationwide and fighting for votes in more than just a handful of states would benefit both. It might give future presidents some perspective about how the other half of the country that their party has been ignoring all these years actually lives.

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This column originally appeared in the Bangor Daily News, where Gagnon servers as a conservative columnist.  His columns appear every Friday.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

With a seemingly insurmountable lead, Paul LePage appears to have secured the Republican nomination. He is showing strength in Portland, Bangor and Lewiston, and is consistently winning state wide.

It is over. Paul LePage is the nominee.

Early returns as reported by the Portland Press Herald show early strength by Paul LePage across the entire state. It is looking like I am likely to owe Jason Savage a steak.

Incredible.

LePage, Paul – (2,733) 35%
Otten, Les – (1,492) 19%
Abbott, Steve – (1,044) 13%
Mills, Peter - 991 (13%)
Beardsley, Bill – 798 (10%)
Poliquin, Bruce – 399 (5%)
Jacobson, Matt – 293 (4%)

We here at Pine Tree Politics believe one good turn deserves another.  And so above you will see a picture of Ben with a bunch of balls in his hand (okay, well they are eggs – but I think it is funnier to call them balls), and below, please be treated to the sad decline of a once great blog, who in the month of January will be overtaken in traffic by an insurgent right leaning blog from the tiny state of Maine.  Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Enjoy.  Love you Ben:

These ads are filled on quite literally a first come, first serve basis.  I will be accepting ads from gubernatorial candidates across party lines, basically all of whom will be in primary fights.

I want to get this out of the way ahead of time, so we don’t need to go through a nonsensical back and forth later, so here goes.

My running an ad has nothing to do with my opinion of the candidate who is running the ad.  My placement of a candidate ad in a primary does not mean I am endorsing said candidate, or otherwise support their run.  My failure to run another candidate’s ads do not indicate that I do not support them.  Indeed, I think you will find that at several point in the next year, I will be running ads from candidates who are opposing each other in primaries on the same site.

Once again – just for clarity – what ads go up where and when has to do with one thing, and one thing only.  First come, first serve.  They get here early, they get in and get to pick where the ads go.  Next up gets the dibs on what is left, and so on and so forth.  That’s how it runs, simple as that.

Jason Levesque was the first one to jump on board, so he got the plum real estate in the header section.  You will also likely see ads in the side navbar, and also the footer of individual posts.  As time goes by, I may expand that even further.

I will make sure, however, that these ads do not interfere with the overall look and feel of this place.  I do not want to disrupt the enjoyment of reading the articles here – so I will not be running any obnoxious ads, or ads that make the reading experience even remotely challenging or annoying.

So, in short – ads are here, they’re given out to anyone who wants when and where they are available, and I will make sure they don’t piss you off.

End of communication.