By John Solomon
How the government's punishing of the exposure of official wrongdoing can linger for years
Former Gov. John Baldacci said Wednesday that he won't run for the U.S. Senate, becoming the third prominent Democrat to bow out of the high-profile race for a Senate seat that Democrats were given good odds of winning following Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe's decision to retire.
And without deeper pockets and a widely recognized candidate, the Democratic Party runs the risk of finishing third in a three-way race, as it did in 2010 when Republican Paul LePage was elected governor, followed by independent Eliot Cutler and Democrat Libby Mitchell, Mr. Strimling said.
Without such better-known candidates, Democratic donors might be less likely to invest heavily in the race, hurting Democrats' prospects for winning the seat in November, said Ethan Strimling, a political analyst and Democratic activist in Portland.
