Senate race is pitting a 12th-term incumbent from Bedford against a freshman state representative from Lyndeborough. Besides Bedford, District 9 encompasses the towns of Greenfield, Lyndeborough, Merrimack, Mont Vernon and New Boston. Democrat Michael Kaelin is running for the seat to promote renewable energy and protect the environment. The incumbent, Sheila Roberge, said her mission next term will be controlling spending, so the state avoids having an income tax.

“I think it’s important that I run for this term because I think the budget is out of whack.

We’ve got to control spending,” she said. “Spending creates taxes, not the reverse.”

Unless spending is checked, the Bedford Republican warned New Hampshire could be two years away from an income tax, something she has always opposed.

“That is going to be the No. 1 priority, and we don’t know where the economy is going,” Roberge said. “It behooves us to be careful.”

R o b e r g e , who is retired, would be entering her 13th term in the Senate if elected.

“I say my lucky 13,” she said, adding that she did not know if she would run for re-election if she wins this November.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve always taken every two-year term at a time.”

Her opponent, Kaelin, owns an electrical engineering design consulting business. He decided to run for office two years ago because he was bothered that President Bush had put oil company officials in charge of environmental regulation.

As a first-term state rep, he has pushed laws with incentives for customers to use their own electric generators, based on renewable sources, such as sunlight.

One law allows customers to deduct what they produce from their electric bills, while the other created a rebate of $6,000, or 50 percent, for installing the generators.

As a senator, he wants to push for upgrading the transmission lines to the North Country to accommodate a wind-power station. He is convinced energy will be a winning issue.

“I think that a lot of people are extremely concerned about their energy costs,” he said.

He also accused Roberge of not being active in her district or the Senate.

“We need someone who is active and, pardon the pun, who has the energy to get out and get things done,” Kaelin said. Roberge, a 24-year veteran of the Senate, dismissed his charge as the claim of “someone who wants to unseat a person who has been there awhile.”

She touted her work on legislation to eliminate the Merrimack tolls and had a role in bringing Bedford town officials and the state Department of Transportation to an agreement on state funding for the expansion of the Route 101-Nashua Road intersection.

Also, if re-elected, Roberge would re-file a bill requiring parental notification if a minor gets an abortion.

“You have to have a parent’s permission to get an aspirin at school or have your ear pierced, which is far less significant than an abortion,” she said.