Staff Writer

If voters like the idea in November, Joe Palmieri will go from covering the Statehouse in Augusta to serving in it.

Palmieri, a South Portland resident who owns Chicago Dogs in Scarborough and is co-host of “The Morning Jab” sports talk radio show on WJAB, used the show to announce his candidacy for the seat in state Senate District 7 last Friday.

The district, comprised of South Portland, Cape Elizabeth and a section of eastern Scarborough, is now served by Sen. Larry Bliss, a Democrat completing his first term.

Palmieri, 50, said the idea of running for public office has been in his mind for almost a dozen years, but he decided to wait until his children had grown up.

With a 24-year-old son serving in the Army and an 18-year-old daughter about to graduate from South Portland High School, Palmieri said the time had come to run.

Should he defeat Bliss in November (neither candidate will be opposed in their party primaries June 8), Palmieri will return to a beat he once covered as a reporter for WGME-13 in Portland.

“This is not about advancing agendas,” Palmieri said this week. “You go in with a small list you want to accomplish and you move on.”

The list is simple, Palmieri said, and revolves around his desire to improve the business climate in the state and put more people to work.

“Owning the business opened my eyes,” Palmieri said, citing the proposed 2008 tax on soft drinks to fund the state Dirigo Health as a way the Legislature has created at atmosphere not conducive to developing business. The proposed tax was eventually defeated in a referendum vote.

He said he decided to run for Senate because the chamber is more likely to gain a Republican majority and give him a chance to have more influence on legislation.

But before deciding to run, Palmieri said he needed to be sure his family was comfortable with his desire to serve and the restaurant he bought in February 2008 would not suffer because of time he might spend in Augusta.

Leaving the business to a new manager while he went to Florida last month resolved one issue, Palmieri said.

A meeting with Republican leaders, where his wife Cheryl had her questions about the rigors of running and serving answered, resolved the second question and Palmieri decided to run, he said.

Palmieri announced he will take a leave of absence from the radio show beginning in June.

He will replace Eric B. Lusk on the ballot. Lusk was a 2008 Republican candidate for the state Senate District 8 seat in Portland. Lusk compiled the needed signatures to file as a candidate, but said this week he was glad to step aside because he has only lived in Cape Elizabeth for a short time and is an “enthusiastic supporter of Joe’s candidacy.”

Palmieri said he covered the Statehouse for WGME in the late 1980s and early 1990s, in turbulent times that included a shutdown of state government in 1991.

“Even in the rough and tumble days, you could sit down and hammer out a deal,” Palmieri said.

Despite years in front of a camera and behind a microphone, Palmieri said the door-to-door campaigning for the seat may be daunting.

“I have to be prepared for the fact that some people are going to reject me,” he said.

Bliss, who served in the Maine House beginning in 2000 before winning the Senate seat in 2008, said his campaign and goals if elected center on “employment, equality and environment.”

After a legislative session where balancing the budget was “the all-pervasive issue,” Bliss said he does not expect the priority to differ in the new session, but said he will also make a renewed effort to regulate cell phone use in moving vehicles and to prevent the state from balancing its budget by shifting expenses to local tax burdens.

Staff writer David Harry can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 219