AUGUSTA -- By the end of March, Stephen Meister had determined he was not on track to win the Democratic nomination for Maine's 1st Congressional District race.

An internal poll by the campaign found at the time the Winthrop pediatrician's message was popular, but not the candidate himself.

In a field of six candidates, Meister, 53, was finding it difficult to stand out from the others and convey his message, all on the cheap.

"This is any business," he said. "Your marketing campaign is what gets your product out there."

The problem for Meister, however, was a lack of resources for crafting that marketing campaign, he said Thursday in an interview at his Augusta campaign headquarters as he reflected on his first run for elective office in between trips across the state to gather his remaining campaign signs.

Meister, who in late October became the last of the six candidates to join the race, said he miscalculated his political fortunes from the beginning. If he raised $200,000, Meister said, he thought he would have enough to mount a viable challenge to the frontrunners.

"I underestimated. I made a couple of errors," he said. "I learned you can't do it with less than $500,000."

Meister, a pediatrician at the Augusta practice Kennebec Pediatrics who served a seven-month tour as a Navy physician in the first Gulf War, placed last in Tuesday's election with approximately 1.4 percent of the vote.

Despite the election result, Meister said, the run for the 1st Congressional District was worthwhile.

"The issues that I'm concerned about we brought forth and became part of the debate," he said.

When he entered the race, Meister said, he sought to focus attention largely on healthcare and veterans' issues.

Federal cuts to Medicaid programs are taking a toll on poor children and disabled elderly citizens, he said.

The quality of veterans' services, Meister said, fluctuates depending on political will.

"When there isn't a war, services decrease," he said.

A single-payer, universal healthcare system is not the best solution to the country's healthcare problems if guaranteeing quality services is the objective, the pediatrician said.

"All of these are issues that are federally related," Meister said, explaining that a Statehouse run did not interest him.

The doctor, who said an American Academy of Pediatrics official told him he was the first pediatrician to run for Congress, also said he had a unique profile to add to the slate of candidates.

"I have a completely different set of experiences than the typical lawyer or state legislator," he said.

Rita Moran of Winthrop, chairwoman of the Kennebec County Democratic Committee, said she urged Meister to mount a campaign despite his tardy entry into the fray.

"He went into the race understanding that he was a come-from-behind candidate," Moran said.

When Meister stepped into the field, he found two distinct races: the race for ideas and the race to build a viable campaign organization.

On the idea front, Moran said the Winthrop man was successful.

"If you watched him at the candidates forums and debates," she said, "I thought that he caught up very, very quickly."

For the latter race, however, Meister was unprepared, he said.

"All that takes money," Meister said.

The campaign hired a campaign manager and a secretary, "and then we ran out of money," he said.

Through May 21, Meister's filings with the Federal Election Commission show, the campaign had fallen nearly $18,000 into debt. The operation had collected approximately $64,000 in individual contribu-tions.

Meister said he spent approximately $20,000 of his own money on the race.

The campaign's net intake of $108,000 paled in comparison to some of Meister's rivals'. They all raised more than double that amount. The primary's winner, Chellie Pingree, had raised nearly $1.4 million through May 21.

Meister said he saw the writing on the wall indicating he would be unable to mount a viable candidacy.

After all, he could not afford television advertisements. Hiring multiple paid staff members to craft an appealing marketing message and assemble an engaged volunteer network was out of the question.

To promote a message, Meister relied on his participation in approximately 40 candidate forums and opportunities to deliver speeches at Democratic party events.

Although victory was out of reach, Meister decided against bowing out. He said he viewed his campaign contributors as backers who invested in his candidacy.

"What do you do? Do you quit?" he asked. "You can't quit."

Now, Meister, 17 pounds lighter than he was when the campaign began, said he plans to rest after more than seven months of constant campaigning, and support Pingree as she takes on Republican Charlie Summers in November.

He has no reason to regret his campaign, he said.

"We were part of the process and that's being an American," he said. "I think it's part of our responsibility to step up and be counted, and that's not just voting."

And had he not taken part, Meister said, the range of debate on the trail would have been smaller.

"My hope in doing this," he said, "was I said things that made a difference."

Matthew Stone -- 623-3811, Ext. 435

mstone@centralmaine.com