For four years, the residents in Maine Senate District 20 have been ably represented by Republican Dana Dow, a Waldoboro businessman whose essential pragmatism has often allowed him to transcend politics in a very partisan Statehouse.

Dow is calling it quits, and Democratic Rep. Peter L. Rines of Wiscasset and former four-term Republican Rep. A. David Trahan are now vying for Dow's seat.

Trahan is the best choice to follow in Dow's moderate footsteps.

A confessed public-service "addict," Trahan's conversation is filled with facts and figures about such arcane but important topics as school funding formulas and shellfish toxics testing.

While Rines is a solid legislator, he's more often been a party loyalist who would be unlikely to stake out independent positions in the future. Trahan is energetic, committed, full of ideas and ways to carry them out.

He could play a boisterous role among the many lackluster Senate Republicans, enabling them to present a more lively -- and thus useful -- opposition to the Senate's Democrats, who have gotten very comfortable running the place over for most of the last 13 years. We endorse David Trahan for Senate District 20.