PORTLAND, Maine — Maine Democrats say their Senate candidate is a fifth-generation Mainer and a logger from Aroostook County who knows this state like the back of his hand. To prove it, they brought in a busload of people from Rhode Island.

Now, I don't want to say that's unusual. But up here, when a fella needs help splitting wood, he calls his neighbor. He doesn't charter a coach from Providence.

Maine Democratic Party chair Charles Dingman posted on Facebook that he "met a bus load of Rhode Island Democrats in Portland, led by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse." He said they "spent the day knocking doors for Troy, Hannah, Chellie, and our Portland Senate and House candidates." The Maine Wire flagged the post Monday. Troy Jackson's own campaign events page had already advertised it: "a big group of canvassers - the Rhode Island Democrats - up to Portland Peninsula."

So it wasn't a secret. It was a sign-up sheet.

Folks, I've been sitting at the same counter at the same diner since the Carter administration, and I can tell you what happens when a stranger knocks on a Maine door in late October. First, the dog finds out. Then the wife finds out. Then the husband comes to the door in a flannel shirt and asks, "You lost?"

And the fella on the porch says, "No sir, I'm here from Cranston to tell you how to vote."

That conversation lasts about as long as a pat of butter on a hot stack.

The Jackson campaign has also been promoting volunteer trips from around New England, including bus departures from Boston, according to The Maine Wire. Elizabeth Warren is on the schedule for a Waterville town hall. Mark Kelly is set to door-knock in Brunswick. Bernie Sanders already rallied in Bangor earlier this month.

So far the campaign has imported a senator from Massachusetts, a senator from Arizona, a senator from Vermont, a senator from Rhode Island and his whole bus. At this rate the only person in the race who's actually from Maine is Susan Collins.

Rhode Island, for the record, is so small you could fit it inside Aroostook County about five times and still have room left over for potatoes. These are folks who think a long drive is going to Newport. They came up 95 North, knocked on doors on the Portland Peninsula, and probably went home believing they'd seen the wilderness because a moose sign was on the highway.

To be fair, it's legal. Volunteers can knock wherever they like. But it's a funny look for a campaign whose entire pitch is "he's one of us."

He is one of us. It's the rest of the bus who aren't.

Early voting in Maine runs through Oct. 29. Election Day is Nov. 3. Somewhere in Portland right now there's a doormat that says "Welcome," and a man standing behind that door who never once meant it for Rhode Island.

They say you can't fake being from Maine. Apparently you can bus it in.

This article is satire. The Demorat is a parody news site; real facts are drawn from the linked sources, and jokes, invented scenes, and fictional characters are not real.

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