Ladies of Maine

One of Maine's prouder political distinctions is that it boasts the only woman in the U.S. Senate, Republican Margaret Chase Smith, 62. Handsome Maggie Smith is up for re-election this fall--and she faces the fight of her political life. But whoever wins, Maine will not lose its distaff distinction. Last week the Democratic minority leader of the Maine legislature, popular, plump Lucia Cormier, 48, tossed her bonnet in the ring to oppose Maggie Smith's third-term bid. For the first time in U.S. history, two women are to scrap for a Senate seat.

Challenger Cormier, who runs a stationery shop in Rumford (pop. 9,954), was a lukewarm Republican until 1945, when she dropped in on a Democratic town meeting "as something to do for an evening," liked the Democrats and their message. In 1947 she was elected to the state legislature, became Maine's Democratic national committeewoman (1948-56), rolled up a reputation as such a strong vote getter (especially among her fellow French Catholics) that she has run unopposed in recent elections.

As politicians, Widow Smith (after her husband's death in 1940, she won his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives) and Spinster Cormier have much in common. In a state that was long a fortress of rock-ribbed conservatism, both have earned reputations as "liberals," have won broad labor support. Both prefer to ring bells and shake hands on street corners than to get up on the stump. Both are fiercely independent; e.g., Senator Smith denounced Joe McCarthy in his heyday, later bucked the Administration by voting against the confirmation of Commerce Secretary Lewis Strauss, last time ran with little support from Maine's Republican organization.

Incumbent Smith currently has the edge in the Senate race. But the Republican reign in Maine has been slowly on the wane. And Lucia Cormier is bound to be helped by the fact that the state's Democratic slate is headed by one of Maine's champion vote getters, two-term Congressman Frank Morey Coffin, 40, scion of an old Maine Democratic family (his grandfather, grandmother and mother held political offices in the state), who put off his own ambitions for the Senate to run for the patronage-heavy Governor's seat, now occupied by young (39) Republican John H. Reed.

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