One does not have to buck the establishment to be elected to major public office in Maine. But it hasn't seemed to hurt.

Just take a quick look at the resounding popularity of our current U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. Both frequently espouse positions -- whether on health care or other social issues -- off to one side of GOP leadership.

Jim Longley Sr. and Angus King were both Democrats who left their parties to win election as independent governors.

Bill Hathaway, the Democrat elected four times to the U.S. House of Representatives from the rural Republican 2nd District and who then went on to upset Margaret Chase Smith for a Senate seat is another. Hathaway represented the state in Washington, D.C., for 14 years.

But there's more to Hathaway than his congressional career, as I found out when sitting down with him recently to discuss the path his life has taken since leaving the Senate 31 years ago.

Now 85, Hathaway is as alert and as in-touch with public affairs as he was when he last held public office. He also has maintained the unassuming, nonpartisan demeanor that led Washington Magazine in 1978 to name him one of 16 persons to win its "most well-liked by colleagues" award.

After his 1978 election loss to William Cohen, Hathaway signed on as a lobbyist with Patton Boggs, a leading Washington-based law firm. His first client, Chrysler, was then beset with a predicament with a contemporary ring: a distressed car manufacturer seeking a government rescue.

When asked to compare the Chrysler crisis with the auto industry's current dilemma, Hathaway said:

"Well, they're quite similar. Of course, the Chrysler bailout worked out very well. In fact with Chrysler, the federal government wound up making money as the result of the bailout because we got them out of it and then they had to pay back the loan with a fee on top of that."

Hathaway took a break from lobbying in 1980 when his former colleague, Edward Kennedy, ran for president. Hathaway went on the Kennedy campaign trail in Maine, which resulted in the state supporting the Massachusetts senator. President Carter, however, did secure re-nomination.

Hathaway, a Harvard-educated attorney, continued lobbying, usually for corporations. "I wasn't nuts about lobbying. Lobbying is asking your friends for favors is what it amounts to. ... I can't object to the pay I was getting, but I really didn't enjoy doing that kind of work."

It was more than a decade before Hathaway was called back to the public sector. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush appointed him to the Federal Maritime Commission. Although a Democrat, Hathaway came to the attention of the GOP president because of his association with Bush's vice president, Dan Quayle, a long-time Hathaway golfing partner.

That the conservative Quayle should be on such good terms with a Kennedy Democrat typified Hathaway's collegial approach, more common among public figures then than it is today.

Despite Hathaway's support for Quayle in 1992, President Bill Clinton named the Maine Democrat to be chairman of FMC.

During Hathaway's tenure, the FMC levied millions of dollars in fines against the Japanese for charging port fees from which their own ships were exempted. The fines forced Japanese shipping companies to stop discriminating against American carriers.

Hathaway also led the commission as it helped the European Union end unfair pricing by a cartel that controlled Atlantic shipping.

Hathaway's one-time legislative assistant, Angus King, was elected governor in 1994. Though Hathaway played no part in the campaign, King paid tribute to Hathaway as one of his "life's political mentors and heroes" and moved Hathaway's portrait into a premiere position in the State House Cabinet room.

After leaving the FMC in 1996, Hathaway resumed lobbying, but only on a pro bono basis, so button-holing elected officials was now more in tune with his public-spirited character.

One of his successes was for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, with a law in 2000 that denied federal transportation money to states that refused to lower the blood alcohol level required to convict OUI offenders. The new standard, which Maine had adopted a few years earlier, became 0.08.

Hathaway now is helping Jeanette Williams obtain a posthumous pardon for her husband, Pete Williams, a long-time New Jersey senator swept up in the so-called Abscam bribery scandal in 1981. Hathaway believes his former colleague -- chairman of the Labor Committee on which Hathaway also served -- was the victim of entrapment and was unjustly convicted.

Championing a cause that may not have wide popular appeal is in the independent tradition that has made Maine public leaders unique.

It's also classic Hathaway.

Paul H. Mills is a Farmington attorney well known for his analyses and historical understanding of Maine's political scene. E-mail: pmills@midmaine.com.