Maine caucuses a chance to right the Romney ship

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney speaks at a town hall meeting campaign stop in Portland, Maine February 10, 2012.

PORTLAND, Maine (Reuters) - Maine's Republican presidential caucuses look like a two-man race between Mitt Romney, the party's current front-runner, and libertarian Ron Paul in a contest that has taken on new importance for Romney after his losses in three states this week.

Voting in dozens of local caucuses across Maine has been going on since late January, and more than 20 are being held on Saturday in something of a grand finale. Results will be released by the state Republican Party around 7:30 p.m. on Saturday (0030 GMT on Sunday).

The vote is a non-binding straw poll and will not assign the state's 21 delegates to any of the candidates in the state-by-state process to choose a nominee to face Democratic U.S. President Barack Obama in the November 6 general election.

Romney, a former governor of nearby Massachusetts, and Paul, a Texas congressman, made their final appeal to voters in southern Maine on Saturday. Paul, anticipating a strong result,

plans a rally in Portland on Saturday evening.

At a large caucus site in Sanford, Paul shook hands with dozens of voters while Romney made a direct pitch in the packed high school gymnasium.

Delivering a boiled-down version of his usual stump speech, Romney called Obama "a failed president" and added that he was "the one person in this race that can actually beat the president."

"I know what it will take to make America the best place in the world for job creation," Romney said.

Maine's population ranks 41st among the 50 U.S. states, but the contest is key for Romney after he lost to former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado this week.

A win could help right the Romney ship, while a loss would be another sign that Republican voters have reservations about his conservative bona fides.

Paul held several well-attended events in Maine in late January. A rally in Freeport on a frigid day attracted an estimated 1,000 Paul loyalists and curious shoppers at the outdoors clothing and supplies store L.L. Bean - no small feat in a state where total votes cast in the 2008 Republican caucuses was 5,491.

Romney made his first 2012 visit to Maine on Friday, staging a packed town-hall meeting in Portland.

OCEANFRONT PALACES TO POTATO FARMS

Maine encompasses everything from oceanfront estates such as one owned by former President George H. W. Bush in Kennebunkport, to remote potato farms near the state's northern border with Canada. Obama won the state by 18 points in the 2008 election. Maine has not voted Republican in a presidential election since 1988.

Portland, the state's largest city, is only two hours from Boston and within Republican ranks is regarded as natural territory for Romney, who easily won the primary in neighboring New Hampshire a month ago.

But north and away from the coast, Maine's vast, sparsely populated wilderness areas are seen as Paul strongholds - areas where many residents have a frontier spirit and are wary of excessive government involvement in their lives.

Many of Maine's rural areas are also struggling economically. Romney, a multimillionaire former venture capitalist, has not fared well with lower-income voters in most states so far.

Maine's Republican Party has reported large, enthusiastic turnouts at its caucuses. If true, that would mark a change from other states to vote in the Republican contest, where turnout has often been below 2008 levels.

"A number of towns that have not held caucuses in several cycles have become active again, and among those towns that have caucused, attendance has increased on an average of 100 percent," said Loretta Mikols, a committeewoman in Oxford County, on the state's western border with New Hampshire.

John Grooms, state grass-roots director for former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich's campaign in Maine, said turnout had been strong in many locations.

"I went to a caucus in Madison that had never had more than five people - and they had 35," said Grooms.

(Editing by Peter Cooney and Mohammad Zargham)