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Edmund Muskie (March 28, 1914 – March 26, 1996) was a Polish-American politician from Maine. He served as Governor of Maine, a U.S. Senator, as U.S. Secretary of State, and ran as a candidate for Vice President of the United States.

table in Rumford, Maine, the son of Roman Catholic Polish immigrants. He graduated from Bates College in 1936 and Cornell University Law School in 1939 before serving in the United States Navy during World War II rising to Lieutenant.

After the war he was instrumental in building up the United States Democratic Party in Maine. Maine had traditionally been a Republican state, notable for being one of the only two states that Alf Landon carried against Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1936 (the other was Vermont).

He served in the Maine House of Representatives before being elected Governor in 1954.

In 1958 Governor Muskie defeated incumbent Republican Senator Frederick G. Payne by 60 percent of the vote to 39 percent. Senator Muskie was reelected in 1964, 1970 and 1976 by solid margins over 60%.

Muskie became one of the first environmentalists to enter the U.S. Senate and was a leading campaigner for new and stronger measures to curb pollution and provide a cleaner environment.

In 1968, Muskie was nominated for Vice President on the Democratic ticket with sitting Vice President Hubert Humphrey. The Humphrey-Muskie campaign lost the election to Richard Nixon by a narrow margin, winning 42.72% of the vote, 13 states and 191 electoral votes to Nixon-Agnew's 43.42%, 32 states and 301 electoral votes. Third party candidate George Wallace had taken 13.53%, won 5 states in the Deep South and carried their 46 votes in the electoral college.

Continuing his career in the Senate, Muskie served as Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Budget through the Ninety-third to the Ninety-sixth Congresses in 1973-1980.

In 1970, the Maine senator had been chosen to articulate the Democratic party's message to congressional voters before the midterm elections. Muskie's broadcast was seen as thoughtful and definitive in comparison to the message of President Nixon, who appearing in black and white, seemed harsh and paranoid over unrest in the nation over Vietnam and the economy. Considering the obvious parallells drawn between the two men, Muskie's national stature was raised as a major candidate for the Democratic Presidential Nomination in 1972.

Before the 1972 election, he was viewed as the frontrunner, a moderate establishment candidate, for the Democratic Presidential nomination. The nation was at war in Vietnam and the Democratic Party set battle against President Nixon's conduct of the war.

But the grassroots Iowa caucuses made the early runnings more liberal and anti-war than Muskie's perceived positions, and Muskie's perhaps surprising political inexperience - having built up the Democratic Party in his home state, he had never been in a primary battle before, and his performance was criticized - began to show. Some noted that Muskie was inexperienced in running a national campaign. A letter was published written by ABC news anchor Howard K. Smith to the candidate indicating the anchor's full support for his campaign. This was during a contentious period when the Nixon Administration claimed that the press was biased in its news coverage. Muskie lost momentum, and after winning the New Hampshire primary by only a small margin, saw his lead fall to South Dakota Senator George McGovern.

Many also blame Muskie's loss on his emotional defense of his wife, Jane Muskie, after the , a conservative newspaper criticized Mrs. Muskie. Muskie seemingly wept as he spoke outside the newspaper's offices, yet he would later claim that what seemed to be tears were actually melted snowflakes. Had this not been a controversy, many question whether Muskie would have won the nomination and gone on to defeat President Nixon. McGovern would go on to win the nomination before losing the election in a landslide to Nixon. It is now widely believed that The Canuck Letter, a forged document, was responsible for Ed Muskie's loss to McGovern. Muskie had been seen giving a speech in public and weeping.

Historians believe that Nixon's camp pulled a wide range of dirty tricks focused on discrediting the strongest candidates that could challenge President Nixon. During the post-Watergate hearings and prosecutions, a dirty tricks unit of the Nixon campaign was revealed. Among other dubious tricks, literature purportedly from the Hubert Humphrey campaign attacking Sen. Muskie was from neither campaign. During the pivotal Wisconsin primary, an arson occurred at a suburban Milwaukee Democratic campaign headquaters. A young Karl Rove was a member of this dirty tricks unit. Author Theodore White, in his book "The Making of the President 1972", cited such conduct.

Following the resignation of Cyrus Vance in 1980, Muskie left the senate to succeed the latter as Secretary of State in the cabinet of Democratic President Jimmy Carter. Muskie took over at a difficult time; Vance had left following Carter's contentious decision to secretly attempt to rescue American hostages being held in Iran. Muskie attempted to bring the hostages home by diplomatic appeals to the United Nations and Iran. Ultimately, however, the Iran Hostage Crisis cost Carter the general election of 1980 and thus Muskie was returned to private life alongside him. Before he left office, however, Carter did grant his Secretary of State the honour of the Presidential Medal of Freedom on January 16, 1981.

Muskie retired to his home in Washington in 1981. He continued work as a lawyer for some years. In 1987, as an elder statesman, Muskie was appointed a member of the President's Special Review Board known as the 'Tower Commission' to investigate whether President Ronald Reagan's administration's funnelling of money in the Iran-Contra Scandal.

Muskie died in Washington, D.C. of heart failure in 1996, 2 days before his 82nd birthday. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Muskie's papers are kept at the Edmund S. Archives at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.

Thomas Eagleton was the original Vice Presidential nominee in 1972. He withdrew from the race and was replaced by Sargent Shriver.