He’s currently juggling seven active investigations, so forgive the executive director of the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices if he chooses his words carefully.

“I definitely think it’s possible the political actors in Augusta who follow the commission’s activities understand that if they file a complaint, certain results will happen,” Jonathan Wayne said Thursday. “And the commission will react to that.”

Translation: Less than three weeks before Maine voters go to the polls to choose a new governor, we are now officially in silly season.

We begin with Exhibit 1: This week, the Maine Democratic Party formally complained that Republican gubernatorial candidate Paul LePage’s use of a car owned by his employer, Marden’s Surplus and Salvage, should be listed as an “in-kind” donation in his campaign finance reports.

The Dems also allege that a $758 mileage reimbursement received by LePage from his campaign somehow constitutes an unreported contribution from Marden’s. And since the travel check was $8 over the $750 limit on cash contributions, they say, it too violates Maine election laws.

Now LePage, to be sure, has picked up more baggage in this campaign than a porter at JFK International Airport. But honestly, it’s hard to imagine this Democratic clunker ever getting off the ground.

The car, according to a campaign aide, is part of LePage’s compensation package as general manager for Marden’s and comes with no restrictions on its use. In other words, it functions — on or off the campaign trail — as LePage’s personal vehicle.

And the suggestion that the $758 mileage check from LePage’s campaign is in reality an excessively large cash donation from his employer?

I wouldn’t buy it if I saw it at Marden’s.

None of which, alas, really matters. What counts are the headlines that blossomed all over Maine on Wednesday, including the one in this newspaper that accurately reported: “LePage accused of ethics violation.”

At Maine Democratic Party headquarters, that translates into: “Mission accomplished.”

We move to Exhibit 2: Independent Eliot Cutler’s campaign wants the commission to unmask the anonymous author of “The Cutler Files,” a website that portrays Cutler as “a phony and a fraud (who is) rewriting and revising his history and profile to fit a carefully created campaign persona, fudging the facts and ignoring the truth.”

When the site surfaced late last summer, Cutler campaign manager Ted O’Meara told blogger Matthew Gagnon at pinetreepolitics.com that “The Cutler Files” had Dennis Bailey, former communications director for Democratic hopeful Rosa Scarcelli and now a consultant for independent Shawn Moody, written all over it.

Bailey, in an interview this week, held steadfast to his denial that he’s the brains behind “The Cutler Files.” But he acknowledged “I know some things” and in fact sat down with Wayne last month for an informal chat about who might be pounding away at the keyboard behind that cyber-curtain.

The commission now has gone so far as to prepare a subpoena for Bailey, although Wayne said it has yet to be served.

The Cutler campaign alleges “The Cutler Files” is a professional hit job that must have cost tens of thousands of dollars and hence is subject to full public disclosure of who did what and for how much.

Dan Billings, the attorney who stepped forward to represent the website, counters that it’s nothing more than constitutionally protected free speech and thus Billings’ spotlight-shy client is in no way subject to campaign finance laws.

Either way, you’ve got to wonder why the Cutler campaign decided to make such a big deal out of the website in the first place. Had they ignored it, after all, I and others like me wouldn’t be telling inquiring minds that you can read all about it at www.cutlerfiles.com.

Finally, we have Exhibit 3: Just last week, I received word from Wayne that the ethics commission had received a written complaint about (gulp) me.

The one-page, single-spaced letter from Walter J. Eno of Scarborough urged the commission to launch a “formal inquiry” into the series of open letters I’ve written in recent months to LePage on everything from his penchant for making things up to his recent promise that as governor he’d tell President Obama to “go to hell.”

“He vilifies LePage with an arrogance that is breathtaking and a zeal that is frightening,” wrote Eno of my letters to LePage. Eno goes on to request a full-bore investigation of yours truly, along with my employer, MaineToday Media, “to avoid any further damage to Mr. LePage’s good name and candidacy for governor.”

Well, Mr. Eno, I’m glad you found the columns “breathtaking.”

As for your complaint, I join the commission in referring you to Maine Revised Statutes Title 21A, subsection 1012, which specifically excludes from the definition of a campaign expenditure “any news story, commentary or editorial” in a newspaper such as The Portland Press Herald.

But heck, since we’re now communicating publicly, what say we meet for a beer (I’ll buy) at a time and place of your choosing and see if we can work this thing out between the two of us.

The ethics commission, for better or worse, already has enough to do.

 

Columnist Bill Nemitz can be contacted at 791-6323 or at:

bnemitz@mainetoday.com