Northern light: navigating the Maine Senate race with Chellie Pingree.

"WE'RE SLIGHTLY OFF COURSE. BUT WE WANTED to let the trainee run the boat," jokes Chellie Pingree over the din of an outboard motor. It's a chilly, starlit September night off the coast of Rockland, Maine, and Pingree--a onetime farmer, divorced mother of three, former owner of a wool-knitting business and progressive Democratic Senate candidate--is providing navigation advice laced with good-natured jabs.

Soon she pauses to explain some nautical terminology: A "gong" is a buoy equipped with a bell that rings when waves slap against it; a "spindle" is ...

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