L. Sandy Maisel, a political scientist at Colby College who aligned himself with many of Maine’s top Democrats in the key period of the 1970s, died of intestinal cancer Monday at age 79.
His death was announced by the Waterville college at which he worked for more than 50 years. The Buffalo, New York, native went to summer camp in Belgrade before coming to Maine to work on the 1972 U.S. Senate campaign of Democrat Bill Hathaway. That intersected with his Colby job offer, which he said in 2010 was supposed to be for just three years.
“You come to a small town, you want to be part of the life of the small town, and that was why I came here, that’s why when I go to Washington or New York or Boston, I quickly come back here, because I like it, you know,” he told an interviewer for a Bowdoin College history project.
Maisel was an unusually public-facing academic. Upon arriving at Colby, he organized students for Hathaway, the Democrat who famously ousted the legendary U.S. Sen. Margaret Chase Smith. He later worked for longtime U.S. Sen. George Mitchell. In 2003, he became the founding director of the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs, which brings political figures to the campus.
During his long time at Colby, Maisel himself ran in the 1978 Democratic primary in Maine’s 1st Congressional District, hoping to challenge Republican David Emery. But Maisel finished last of four candidates, motivating a memoir cheekily titled, “From Obscurity to Oblivion,” in which he traveled the country talking to other candidates in that year’s elections.
Maisel’s father ran a furniture store in Buffalo. He attended Harvard University in the 1960s, going to civil rights marches as the city was ordered by the Massachusetts Legislature to desegregate its school system. He got his doctorate from Columbia University.
Colby said he may have attended more sporting events than any other person in school history, in large part due to his longtime role chairing the Athletic Advisory Committee. He was a member of the Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville, where he recently helped to lead the synagogue’s effort to raise millions of dollars for renovations.
Maisel lived on Great Pond in Oakland with his wife, Patrice. They had two children and five grandsons.
