The founder of the Maine Tea Party spoke out today in an effort to distance the so-called grass roots movement from any of the candidates running in next week's election. Peter Harring from Standish--known also as "Pete the Carpenter"--invited reporters to a Thursday morning press conference in downtown Portland's Monument Square.

The founder of the Maine Tea Party spoke out today in an effort to distance the so-called grass roots movement from any of the candidates running in next week's election. Peter Harring (above) from Standish--known also as "Pete the Carpenter"--invited reporters to a Thursday morning press conference in downtown Portland's Monument Square.

Harring felt compelled to make a statement, he says, because of comments made recently by 1st District Democratic Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, who next week defends her seat against Republican challenger Dean Scontras.

"Chellie Pingree has been claiming that a victory over Dean Scontras would be a victory over the Tea Party movement. I'd like to take this minute to let everybody know that the Tea Party as a whole does not endorse candidates at all. We try to remain neutral and educate the public as much as we possibly can," Harring said.

Tea Party opponents vigorously protest the movement's claim to be non-partisan. They include Mike Tipping from the Maine People's Alliance, a left-leaning advocacy group. Tipping came to the outdoor press conference to make his feelings known.

"They've been attacking Libby Mitchell, they've been attacking Chellie Pingree, and they've been attacking Olympia Snowe. Pete Harring just said on his Web site the other day that he thought Snowe was in a drug-addled coma. I think it's really unfortunate that this kind of thing is part of our public discourse," Tipping says.

Meanwhile, Pete Harring, who estimates that the Maine Tea Party has thousands of followers, admitted that while the movement does not publicly endorse candidates, there are some whose beliefs coalesce with the Tea Party's values of "fiscal responsibility and smaller government." "Paul LePage is in line with many of the thoughts that the Tea Party believes in," he says.

"The Tea Party is, I think, this sort of amorphous and hard-to-define movement," says Brian Duff, an associate professor of political science at the University of New England. "You see how politicians change their relationship based on their circumstances, so Paul LePage, when he was trying to get that Republican nomination, he courted the Tea Party, he did it really effectively."

Duff says now that LePage has a chance of being elected governor, he's distancing himself from the Tea Party in an effort to win over more moderate Republican voters.

And the Maine Tea Party, he adds, is happy with this arrangement if it means LePage becoming governor, as it would help towards their eventual goal of unseating Maine's senior senator, whose bi-partisan stance on a number of issues makes her anathema to Tea Party activists.

"If Paul LePage can get elected this year, that is going to give them a lot of momentum towards 2012 where, I think they're going to try and make life very complicated for Olympia Snowe," Duff says.

As for the Tea Party's efforts to disassociate itself from Dean Scontras, "I think Dean Scontras is going to get beat and if the Tea Party is seen as too closely tied to him, it'll look like a loss for the Tea Party," Duff says.

With a recent poll indicating that Scontras is closing in on Chellie Pingree, however, the Republican challenger says he's confident of victory. While he says he shares the Tea Party's concerns over government spending and debt, he's fine with not getting their formal backing.

"It's not an endorsement that I've sought out, and if they're not giving it then the only endorsement I want is the endorsement of the Maine people on Tuesday," Scontras says.

A spokesman for Chellie Pingree, meanwhile, pointed out via email that Scontras has been quoted as describing himself as one of the "founding fathers of the Tea Party movement in Maine."