An eighth Democrat entered the race for governor today, raising the head count for those seeking the chief executive's job to 21. John Richardson, a former speaker of the House, resigned his cabinet post in the Baldacci administration as commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development to stage a publicly-funded campaign. Richardson will not be the only former House speaker to run for governor next year -- in fact half of the Democrats in the race are State House insiders.

Surrounded by more than 100 friends and followers, former House Speaker John Richardson chose his home town of Brunswick to announce his intention to become the Democratic candidate for governor next year.

"I have the experience, and this is, right now, no time for amateurs, or no time for people without that kind of experience in job creation," he said. "That's why I'm running. I think Maine people are looking for a leader, looking for someone who has a plan, and I want to offer up my talents, and I want to put myself to work on behalf of Maine people."

Richardson has resigned his position with the Baldacci administration as commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development. He joins two other former speakers of the House and sitting members of the Legislature in the crowded race for governor.

And as a candidate who wants to run a publicly-financed campaign, Richardson will be competing with Senate President Libby Mitchell and former Biddeford Mayor Donna Dion, who will each be hitting up party members to raise $40,000 in seed money to qualify under the Maine Clean Election Act.

"I can raise the money if I have to; I worry about others who can't and yet have something to say within this race," Richardson says. "And I don't think this race should be about who has the most amount of money. I think this race should be about ideas, I think this race should be about who has a vision, who has the experience, who has a plan to move economic development forward, who will adhere to the democratic principals of the Democratic Party, but at the same time, make changes when necessary?"

"It's going to be a challenge to get money going into the primary," says MaryEllen FitzGerald, President of Critical Insights Marketing Group in Portland. "After the primary, I think things will open up a little bit for whoever the candidates are, but going in, it's going to be a real challenge. And I think in that sense, candidates who are privately-financed going into the primary have a much better opportunity to just sort of buy mindshare than those who are trying to do some public financing."

FitzGerald says the potential gubernatorial candidate list could peak at 25. And that means -- for the next several months -- the political spotlight will shine almost exclusively on the party primary candidates, largely because the media will not have the time or resources to devote to nearly two dozen candidates.

"What I think is going to happen, unfortunately, is that you're going to see less actual press scrutiny -- for instance, these candidates are going to be able to craft their own press releases and just sort of fire them out and nobody is going to be able to check every fact or give it the kind of spin and scrutiny that it requires," FitzGerald says. "So you're going to be seeing probably more and more in the tranditional press that gets sort of passed along as news when it's actually really just sort of a public pronouncement of a candidate's position without any real objectivity."

To date, there are eight Democratic candidates running for governor. The last time Democrats had such a large field was 1994. At the time, Dennis Bailey of the consulting firm Savvy Inc. was advising the campaign of an independent in the race, former Gov. Angus S. King. This year Bailey, is managing the campaign of Rosa Scarcelli, a Democratic Portland businesswoman with no political experience who is running a privately-financed campaign.

Bailey says that sets her apart from former House Speakers Richardson, Libby Mitchell and Steve Rowe who are all vying for the nomination. "I think all the candidates are going to have a particularly hard time distinguishing themselves in the voters' mind, because their resumes, except for Rosa, are very similar -- former speakers of the house, former cabinet members, former administration officials, and it is going to be hard, they're going to have a hard job."

Candidates seeking public financing for governor must submit their application to the state Ethics Commission before April 1st of next year.