Sen. Chandler Woodcock, the Republican candidate for governor, is trying to make Cabela’s request for an exemption on collecting sales tax for its Internet and catalog sales in Maine into a campaign issue in his bid to unseat Gov. John Baldacci.

The issue came up at a campaign forum sponsored by the Maine Municipal Association last week that Baldacci did not attend.

Scarborough Town Councilor Patrick O’Reilly asked those in attendance, including Woodcock, independent Rep. Barbara Merrill and Pat LaMarche of the Green Party, where they stood on the Cabela request.

Woodcock responded that the store deserved an answer and he had requested one from the Maine Revenue Service. Later in the week, he tried to make news out of the issue, holding a press conference at the site of the proposed 125,000-square-foot store off Haigis Parkway that would employ 320 people.

“In addition to lowering taxes and making our rules and regulations more streamlined and predictable, we must develop a new attitude that says to businesses, ‘What can we do to help?'” Woodcock said.

He did not go so far as saying the tax exemption was a good idea, however.

“I am not in a position to evaluate the technical merits of Cabela’s requested ruling from the Baldacci administration, but I do know this. One way or another, they deserve an immediate answer to this request.”

Cabela’s has said it won’t come if it has to collect sales tax from its Maine customers on catalog and Internet sales, and said other states where it has stores have given it the tax break. The store claims a 165,000 catalog orders a year from Maine residents.

“If this administration is not going to agree with all those other states where Cabela’s has stores, then Maine people need to be given a very clear and compelling reason why we’re turning down the hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in new tax revenue that this project will create,” Woodcock said.

The issue boils down to the state’s interpretation of federal tax law, which in general says that if a company has a retail outlet in the state and also does Internet and catalog sales there, the sales tax on orders from that state’s residents for Internet and catalog sales have to be charged. The key is whether the operations – physical store and Internet and catalog sales – are sufficiently intertwined.

The administration has not commented on Cabela’s, saying it is up to the Maine Revenue Service to decide.