When an official of the Greater Cumberland Committee quoted a study that said widening the road would lure thousands of permanent jobs to one of the most conservative parts of the state, the senator reacted with playful skepticism.
"Eight thousand jobs in this area would be breathtaking. It would be breathtaking," she said, laughing. "Not getting touchy, but, you know, there are 10,000 votes in Garrett County. And if I got 8,000 people jobs, man, it would kind of change the Democratic profile out here."
Opinion polls regularly show that Mikulski is Maryland's most popular political figure. She has never gotten less than 65 percent of the statewide vote in a re-election race, and Republicans appear unlikely to field a credible challenger.
GOP state Chairman Jim Pelura said he is sure his party will nominate someone but "it's premature to name names."
Don Murphy, a Republican consultant and former state legislator, said that Mikulski's "strength, clearly, is that she's viewed as the every-person. A regular person."
She has directed hundreds of millions in federal dollars to pet projects in the state over the years. Her ability to deliver, as a powerful member of the Senate panel that controls spending, has helped keep her in office. But earmarked spending is under assault from critics, led by President Barack Obama.
Mikulski's new message to Maryland officials: "Earmarks are very fragile." They yield relatively small amounts of money, if they get funded at all. A smarter way to go is to seek aid from existing federal grant programs, which Democrats in Washington are fattening up.
"I can't get contracts. You have to bid for them," she said in Cumberland. "We've put the money in the checkbook ... so you just apply for it."
She praises the former community organizer now living in the White House for his leadership, and she boasts about the pen he handed to her at a signing ceremony for an equal-pay law that she helped get through Congress.
"The very first bill signed by the first African-American president," she told the local Democrats. "I now have a national treasure."
Mikulski can't resist a pun, explaining that she took advantage of the Senate's two-week spring break to visit "all of the rural parts in my state, things that take a while to drive to, so that when I come I'm not doing drive-by schmoozing."
At the Luke Paper Co. on the North Branch of the Potomac, one of the last big employers in Maryland's piece of the Rust Belt, she met with company and labor officials, then toured the mill.
"Don't forget us up here," said Steve Weaver, 44, who operates the high-tech control room.
"That's exactly why we're here," the senator replied.
"You're going to get my vote, then," Weaver said.
