Blaine House Derby

The deadline for official party-affiliated gubernatorial candidates has passed, which has whittled down the field (!) of would-be governors to 21.
That’s five more than there are counties in the state, but not surprisingly not all counties are represented in the race, if you go by the towns or cities the candidates call home.
The state Ethics Commission has a list of all the candidates (and then some; it includes inactive candidates and some who did not get enough signatures to run in the party primaries), but the addresses listed there are for the campaigns, not necessarily the candidates themselves. The Maine Secretary of State's official list of all the primary candidates correctly lists the official municipality of residence for each one.
There are two Hancock County candidates still in the race, even after Green candidate Lynne Williams of Bar Harbor failed to get enough signatures to get on the June ballot. Bill Beardsley, former president of Husson College, is an Ellsworth resident and running as a Republican. J. Martin Vachon, an unenrolled candidate (though he calls himself a Republican on his Web site), lives in the nearby town of Mariaville. If either is elected, he would be the first Maine governor to call Hancock County home.
Washington County has never had one of its sons (or daughters, for that matter) elected to the highest office in the state, and isn't offering any candidates this time around. Neither is Aroostook County, which has been home to three Maine governors (according to the state's official historic list).
Besides Beardsley, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have anyone in the governor's race who lives east or north of Waterville. Among Republicans, Les Otten lives in Greenwood, Peter Mills in Cornville, and Bruce Poliquin in Georgetown. None of these towns could be accused of being among Maine's bigger or more centrally located municipalities, but none can be confused with eastern or northern Maine, either. No Democrat in the race lives further north or east than Vassalboro.
Outside of Hancock County, what other eastern or northern Maine candidates are there? Only three more independents: Alex Hammer and Augusta Edgerton, both of Bangor, and Christopher Cambron of Greenbush, which is on the Penobscot River north of Old Town.
None of this is to say that geography is more important than ideology when it comes to electing a governor. But it is interesting sometimes to see how well some candidates from one of "the two Maines" connect with residents from the other.

P.S. - When possible, I've tried to link candidate names with their corresponding campaign Web sites. Those with such sites whose names do not appear above are:

• Steve Abbott of Portland.
• Samme Bailey of Gorham.
• Eliot Cutler of Cape Elizabeth.
• Matthew Jacobson of Cumberland.
• Paul LePage of Waterville.
• Patrick McGowan of Hallowell.
• Elizabeth Mitchell of Vassalboro.
• John Richardson of Brunswick.
• Steve Rowe of Portland.
• Rosa Scarcelli of Portland.
  
• Kevin Scott of Andover.
• John Whitcomb of Sidney.