In the spirit of the season, here's a photo from Rep. Jon Hinck's facebook page. Perhaps a sign he's ready to take the plunge for the 2012 senate race.

One or both of Hinck and Matt Dunlap should be announcing their intentions soon. If it becomes a race, look for their first financial reports to be an important milestone. Both potential candidates will have to make an electability argument and prove they can take on Snowe and her warchest.

There’s some irony to the fact that at the same time that large groups of people are now taking to streets and parks and the open air to protest the role of money, particularly corporate money, in politics, some very important decisions about exactly this issue are being made in the sheltered corridors of Maine’s statehouse.

As the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York grows in size and attention (in Jon Stewart's words the media has moved "its coverage dial from blackout to circus"), a spin-off occupation has developed in downtown Portland.

The Portland-based movement now apparently includes a hard-core cadre of full timers who have set up tents in nearby Lincoln Park and a diverse group of supporters who have been stopping by to protest, march, or just join the "occupation," as the group dubs its presence in Monument Square.

The administration of Governor Paul LePage has been the most visible aspect of the new hard-line conservative movement in Maine and, for seven months, communications and political director Dan Demeritt was the voice of that administration.

(Granted, that voice often had to begin his statements with "What the Governor meant to say was...")

That's why it was surprising for many to see Demeritt's tweet last week: "I signed the Equality Maine petition today. Tough times easier with loving spouse. I wish the same support for everyone."

I've now written more times about how to properly interpret political polling than I can easily remember, including more than a dozen pieces here at Down East.

In early September 2004, a swirling vortex formed over the Gulf of Mexico. It would grow to be Hurricane Ivan, the 10th most powerful recorded hurricane in the Atlantic, and would soon hit the Gulf States, causing $18 billion in damage. First, however, it devastated several Caribbean Islands, including Grand Cayman.

One of the casualties there was the St. Matthew’s University School of Medicine. The campus and nearby student housing was badly damaged and the medical students, many of them Americans, had to be relocated.

Photographer/blogger Corey Templeton of the Portland Daily Photo blog has put together an infographic showing the current Twitter followers and Facebook likes for the fifteen Portland mayoral candidates (click the image to enlarge).

Michael Brennan, David Marshall, and Ethan Strimling all have strong showings, likely due to their high name recognition after having held other political offices.

Despite a beautiful August day yesterday, a public hearing at the State House drew a strong turnout of Mainers hoping to influence the bipartisan congressional redistricting committee as it considers competing plans for redrawing Maine’s political map.

The plans could hardly be more different. The Democratic map moves only a single town (or, in their compromise proposal, a handful of towns), meeting the requirements of the process with minimal disruption of congressional districts that have remained largely the same since they were created in 1961.

Supporters of equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples have begun their campaign to gather the 57,277 valid signatures necessary to place the issue on the November, 2012 ballot.

Maine GOP Chairman Charlie Webster is working hard to sow doubt about Maine's election system and convince Mainers that his political opponents have engaged in coordinated election fraud. His campaign is in large part an attempt to derail a People's Veto effort launched to protect Election Day voter registration in Maine (a cause I support both personally and professionally).