Even on her 96th birthday, former Sen. Margaret Chase Smith followed the politician's creed: Never rule out another run.
"Is it too late?" Smith asked Tuesday, when asked why she wasn't running for governor. "That wouldn't be a bad idea just to get people to vote."Dozens of friends and admirers honored the matriarch of Maine's GOP at a birthday reception at the Governor's Mansion in Augusta.
Smith, the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress, ended a 32-year political career in 1972. She was praised in 1950 for criticizing fellow Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy's Communist-hunting tactics.