BRUNSWICK, Maine — In the last 50 years, Maine citizens have voted on a multitude of referendums covering everything from bear hunting to gay marriage to the fate of a nuclear power plant. During that time, Chris Potholm played in a role in many of them as a pollster or consultant, and now he’s written a book on the subject called “How Maine Decides: An Insider’s Guide to How Ballot Measures Are Won and Lost.”
To call Potholm an insider is to perhaps understate his credentials. His first big win came in 1972 when he managed the campaign that sent Bill Cohen to Congress from Maine’s second district. Along the way he worked on many other campaigns in Maine and beyond, offering advice to Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, and to supporters and opponents of numerous referendums.
But Potholm also has an outsider’s perspective, one sharpened by the half century he …