This past spring, blogger and free-lance Web site designer Lance Dutson was sued by the Maine Office of Tourism’s New York advertising agency, Warren Kremer Paino, for defamation because of the manner in which he criticized the agency’s promotion of Maine, particularly in its advertising on the Internet.
A hot war began. First, a national firestorm of blogger scorn and Goliath-versus-David news poured upon the New York firm — and, by association, the Maine tourism office — for suing a 33-year-old, former lumber-company employee sitting at his home-office computer in tiny Searsmont, Maine. Quickly, the administration of Democratic Governor John Baldacci forced Warren Kremer Paino to drop the suit. Meanwhile, of course, Dutson’s blog (mainewebreport.com) became highly popular.
Since the suit, the criticism from Dutson has become a barrage: against tourism director Dann Lewis, against his office’s practices, and even against his wife.
Speaking of wives, it didn’t help to sooth Dutson when Nancy Marshall, the tourism office’s public-relations consultant, complained to Dutson’s wife’s employer about his actions.
Marshall soon apologized to Dutson. Jack Cashman, the state’s development commissioner, says he “reprimanded” Marshall, Lewis, and Warren Kramer Paino for feeding the fire. But he feeds the fire himself by calling Dutson “vindictive” and “mean-spirited.” Lewis’s wife, Sherry Lewis, Cashman says, is “actually afraid for her own safety.”
The feelings run extremely high in the Cross State Office Building.
“Horseshit!” Lewis says angrily about Dutson’s various claims about the tourism office. Lewis is a handsome, polished, 68-year-old Dartmouth man, but he tends to lose his cool, in interviews in his office, at the mere mention of Dutson’s name.
“Our lives have been made a living hell,” says Sherry Lewis, 57, about Dutson’s attacks on her. She broke into tears in one telephone interview.
As in most wars, the feelings run high on both sides.
“This group of people tried to destroy my life,” Dutson says, referring to Warren Kremer Paino and the tourism office, which he also blames for the suit. He forwards to the Phoenix remarks he has found on blogs that could be perceived as personal threats against him and his family.
Dutson’s complaints have run from the petty to the worthy of consideration:
• He generated a recent news story about the fact that one of the Lewises’ cars has a Maine vanity license plate reading “ILOVENY.” Years ago, the Lewises both worked on New York state’s “I Love New York” promotional campaign, and Sherry Lewis is a native New Yorker. Her husband said she bought the plate to show solidarity with New Yorkers after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. This issue made the Associated Press news wire and was in the New York papers. The AP story quoted Jack Cashman: “I don’t think it’s a crime to love New York.”
• Dutson sees as ominous that several Warren Kramer Paino executives have contributed to Baldacci’s re-election campaign.
• He finds “absurd” and inflated the tourism office’s claim that, in a recent 12-month period, visitors drawn to Maine by the state’s tourism Web site spent $156 million. A Kennebunk research firm was paid $90,000 for the survey that produced this number.
