State Sen. Thomas B. Saviello knows the value of a T-shirt advertising campaign, and he’s willing to spend to pepper them across the student body at the University of Maine at Farmington.

Saviello, a Republican who has represented Franklin County and other nearby communities, is looking for a third term in the state Senate.

Opposing him on the Nov. 4 ballot will be Joanne Dunlap of Rangeley Plantation, the Democrat who ran against him for the job two years ago. Saviello won what was then Senate District 18 by more than 4,800 votes.

The two are friendly and have a mutual respect for one another.

The new district, Senate District 17, encompasses all of Franklin County plus Vienna, Fayette, Mount Vernon and Belgrade. Up until a recent redistricting, it was known as District 18 and included the Somerset County towns of Mercer and Smithfield and the Kennebec County towns of Wayne, Readfield and Rome.

Saviello, of Wilton, where he also serves as a selectman, is running as a Maine Clean Election Act candidate, raising $1,500 in seed money and receiving $23,580 for his campaign.

In his Sept. 23 campaign finance report, he reported spending almost $4,290 for palm cards and T-shirts, and the latter have proven mighty popular on the campus where he has been an adjunct professor for years, teaching political science and environmental regulation.

This year, his daughter and son designed his campaign shirt to say, “The Man; The Mustache; The Bow Tie.”

Saviello, 64, has fun on his campaign trail. “You try to keep it so it’s light,” he said. “Kind of keep a smile on their face.”

Challenger Dunlap is a retired teacher who owns Mo’s Variety in Rangeley, serves as secretary of the Rangeley Lakes Chamber of Commerce and Market Master of the Rangeley Farmers’ Market, and is an “organic farmer, knitter, spinner, cook and reader,” according to her campaign website.

Her financial filings indicate she received $320 in contributions for the primary election ($300 came from her) and spent just $22.

“I’m a very low budget candidate,” she said. Dunlap, 71, ran as a publicly financed candidate two years ago, but ended up returning just over $6,400 of the money.

“This time I’m telling people I’m not running for office; I’m working slowly. The people in Rangeley know who I am,” she said. “I’m not spending any money and not doing much campaigning.”

Two years ago, she expended more effort.

“Part of my problem is I’m not a politician,” Dunlap said. “I’m an opinionated person.”

Saviello is known as a moderate Republican. He worked with fellow Republican state Sen. Roger Katz of Augusta on a compromise bill that would have expanded Medicaid coverage in Maine to 60,000 low income residents, but added cost-management provisions. It was vetoed by Gov. Paul LePage.

Saviello — who was first elected to the Legislature as a Democrat, then later as an independent and now as a Republican — said he or Katz will resubmit the final version to the newly elected legislators.

He also anticipates legislation to increase the minimum wage in the next session.

In his new retail store in Farmington, he said, he pays employees $10 an hour.

“They’re good people with a smile on their face,” he said. “They’re not worried about getting a second job to make ends meet.”

But he said conundrums remain. “Do I pay summer people $10 an hour?” he asked. “There’s a lot of moving parts to this thing.”

Saviello said he will look at how to make government user friendly for people and business.

He said he talked to a man in Weld who ran into so many regulations he was unable to open a used car business. “What bureaucracy prevented him from doing what he wanted to do?” Saviello asked. “What red tape is getting in the way?”

As for the state budget, Saviello said he hears people telling him they want lower taxes and more returned to municipalities in revenue sharing.

“We have to balance the state budget,” Saviello said, adding that he asks them, “Help me figure out what to change on the other end.”

Dunlap is active in environmental affairs. A year ago she testified against changes in open pit mining regulations during a hearing by state Board of Environmental Protection.

“If they allowed open pit mining, that would have destroyed the environment,” she said, adding that proponents of the changes said they would create jobs. “If we’re business friendly to the wrong kinds of business, we’ll lose our tourist business. I don’t think that’s a good trade. We’ll lose environmental quality of life.”

She said she doubts that many jobs will be created if an interceptor missile base is installed in the Redington Township near Rangeley that serves as a training site for Navy SEALs.

“When they built that base in the first place, no one local got any jobs at all. Why would it be any different this time?” she asked. “We need jobs and we need good jobs.”

Dunlap said she would have supported expanding MaineCare coverage and was disappointed that the legislators failed to override the governor’s veto.

“Health care to me is critical,” she said. “It hurt a lot of people. It also hurt the medical industry in this state cause the money is not here to treat people.”

Betty Adams — 621-5631

badams@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @betadams

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