An Open Letter to Lance Dutson, Director of Internet Strategy for Senator Susan Collins' Senatorial campaign (and owner of Maine Web Report)

An Open Letter to Lance Dutson, Director of Internet Strategy for Senator Susan Collins' Senatorial campaign (and owner of Maine Web Report)

See also: 104 previous stories on Senator Susan Collins and 59 previous stories on the 2008 Maine Senate Race and 16 previous stories on Lance Dutson and 15 previous stories on Maine Web Report.

Lance's most recent post on Maine Web Report is: Tom Allen’s ‘Bill of Wrongs’
An excerpt of his post:
"Jeff Inglis at the Portland Phoenix About Town blog has published “Tom Allen’s Bill of Wrongs”, a list of grievances expressed by advocates of impeaching President Bush, some of whom were escorted by police out of Allen’s Portland offices in recent weeks:"

Generally, I am concerned with what I consider the overly negative tone of the 2008 Maine Senate race.

Recently, in Flag Burning, Maine Web Report, and the Maine Race for U.S. Senate I write in part:
"Which brings me to the Maine Senate Race. Maine News has run 56 previous Maine news stories on the 2008 Maine Senate Race, 103 on Senator Susan Collins and 101 on Rep. Tom Allen. It's a major event and political event in Maine and we've given it significant coverage (by comparison, we've also had 141 stories covering the Internet in Maine, 87 covering the Bangor Daily News, 64 covering Governor John Baldacci and 58 covering the Maine 2008 Races for Congress as but a few other examples. In the approximately 60 posts in which I have provided commentary or analysis: Alex Hammer, among a host of diverse topics one has been my view, detailed from more than one aspect, that what is and/or would be compelling to me in the U.S. Senate race would be well developed and articulated visions for the state of Maine (and the nation) as opposed to attacks, defenses, counterattacks etc. from either camp. While I am all for drawing useful delineations and calling a spade a spade, I believe that any candidate for such an office should very predominantly be detailing, in an integrated and visionary way if they are able, being FOR something (actually a set of somethings) that is clear and in fact comprises a compelling and moving positive vision."

and I say,

"Looking across the political spectrum, I have also had some concerns with Lance Dutson and Maine Web Report. In Lance Dutson, The Senator Susan Collins Campaign and Google - By Alex Hammer - With Three Updates as Story Developments Continue I say in small part (it's a long post):

"Finally, if this sounds like jealousy let me know, but I think that frankly Lance Dutson is receiving too much attention nationally, as opposed to the actual candidate (perhaps it is in conjunction with the candidate) and I have told him so. If you click on a few of the relevant labels on Maine News, you will see that even before the National headlines that this Google issue has brought about, that there has been the press with the tracking issue, back and forth with DailyKos, voting attendance issues, and of course the issues with MoveOn.org have been major and ongoing."

Lance has been very heatedly involved, in a short time, in a host of nationally contested in the press politically intense issues."

I invited comment if any and sent the post to Lance. After hearing from Lance very regularly in the past during this ongoing Senatorial campaign, he has gone silent.

I am not pleased with a negative focus from the Rep. Allen's campaign at times as well, but Lance has stood out (to my mind, not sure what others following the race think) as repeatedly attacking the Allen camp and additional related entities as above. I feel that Senator Collins is either sanctioning or overlooking this behavior, neither of which I approve of although I generally hold the Senator in extremely high regard.

Nobody seems to listen to me when I say (over and over again, maybe I say it too much): Please be positive focused (solutions and vision for our state in these challenging times).

Politics isn't (and must never become) a game.

And I hope that it never reaches the point of "Reasons Not to be Senator"

Thank you very much.

Alex Hammer
hscpub@aol.com