The coalition's 11 representatives from 16 Maine counties squeezed into the conference room to speak with a stiffly groomed and polished Sen. Collins, fresh from a political foray into Afghanistan. She heard protests against continued fighting there, but the presentation's substance was more sophisticated than a simple peace statement.

A SHY AND unassuming Ruth Gabey from West Gardiner, population 2,902, reminded Collins about the constituents left in the wake of America's exploding military budget, expanding by $48 billion, bigger than any other country's defense budget.

Laura Grady, who grew up in Saco and now lives in a farming community, said that nobody she has talked to is without resentment for "trillions in defense that has taken priority over our needs, like our schools."

Attorney Jillian Aldebron from Presque Isle said she came to represent her county and the 14 other women who had visited the offices of Collins and Sen. Olympia Snowe in Presque Isle and Caribou, to tell them how afraid they are.

As the 2004 presidential campaign approaches, losing women because of a war-focused administration is a concern of the president's strategists. In the same week that Aldebron's group prepared for Collins, Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, was telling the Chicago Tribune that a decline in support for military action will come from women first.

Aldebron, who brought a statement citing objections to a number of provisions in the USA Patriot Act, told Collins, "When you scratch the surface, you find a lot of fear. The act went through Congress so fast, our heads were spinning."

On Friday, the Tribune reported that Oprah Winfrey had declined an invitation from the administration to join an official U.S. delegation to tour Afghanistan's schools, for a celebration of the return of young girls to the post-Taliban classroom.

You may remember Bush's appearance on the Winfrey show during his last presidential campaign. He publicly revealed that his favorite sandwich was peanut butter and jelly on white bread, and his favorite song was "Wake Up, Little Susie." His ratings among women, we are told, shot up. This time Winfrey declined to participate in what would have been an international embarrassment and demonstrated insult to the intelligence of women.

An Oprah-Bush two-step around bomb-pocked Afghanistan would have done nothing to impress people like Gabey. Her statement was straight out of Maine concerns that validate themselves on the front pages in Central Maine, Presque Isle or Portland. She talked about the hardships that are taking a back seat to military headlines including the loss of industrial jobs, exported to low-wage countries.

Gabey told Collins that Americans are "going hungry, homeless and in debt, while, among other things, wage-deducted taxes go to reducing the taxes of military contractors, corporate farms, utilities, etc., and small businesses struggle to survive."

She said at Gardiner's recent town meeting she learned there were 66 tax liens on property totaling $36,957; another 132 tax delinquencies amounted to $121,057, for a total of $158,044 in unpaid taxes representing 14 percent of the population.

A prepared statement that she did not leave behind with Collins, "because she already has so much," said, "The infrastructure is in ruins with many secondary roads and bridges in need of repair, sewage treatment plants are in abomination, sidewalks are lacking, transportation for the elderly, at least in Maine, is nonexistent and serious environmental pollution is happening each and every minute that we try to breathe."

COLLINS LISTENED, accepted polite praise and appreciated the distance many had come to make this well-researched presentation.

Aldebron's 12-year-old daughter Charlotte didn't get left out. She told Collins that while teachers and parents teach children to solve problems with words not fighting, leaders who were supposed to be role models were threatening to send nuclear weapons to solve problems.

Collins asked if Charlotte was saying she thought role models were not setting good examples, and told the child that girls were now going to school in Afghanistan because of American action against the Taliban.

This distant rumble from Aroostook County, through Central Maine and down into Southern Maine will take more than Oprah to silence.

Victoria Mares-Hershey is director of development at Portland West. She also chairs the Maine State Refugee Advisory Council and is a founder and the director of the Institute for Practical Democracy, Inc.

Copyright © 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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