This is just way too awesome. This may be the greatest/worst political attack in the world. The GOP in Maine is attacking a Democrat for being an orc in an online game. What, you can’t be a geek and a politician?
Maine GOP communications director David Sorensen sent out an email today detailing the lurid gaming life of Democratic State Senate candidate Colleen Lachowicz, whom he bashes for “living a time-consuming double life as a member of the World of Warcraft community.”
Indeed, Lachowicz plays World of Warcraft as an orc rogue named Santiaga. She’s played a lot, too; Santiaga is a Level 85 assassin and a member of the “Wreck List” guild. We know this because the GOP has handily created a website entirely devoted to monitoring Lachowicz’s gaming sessions and chronicling her posts to online gaming forums.
To Sorensen, Lachowicz’s interest in World of Warcraft is not only puerile, but sheds light into the kind of leader she might be for the state of Maine.
“In Colleen’s online fantasy world, she gets away with crude, vicious and violent comments… Maine needs a State Senator that lives in the real world, not in Colleen’s fantasy world,” the Maine GOP writes on the site. They go on to list out a number of terrible things Lachowicz has posted, dinging her on her bloodlust (“I like to stab things”), laziness (“Ahhh, my productivity has never been the same”), and just general geekiness (“I love playing my rogue
“).
October 5, 2012 at 6:08 am
As a WoW player I actually find this idiotic. If the Republicans in Maine wanted to find a way to look more out of touch than I guess they could run adds about how the nerds shouldn't be allowed to have their own frat. Criticizing someone for their hobbies is what people who can't argue on issues do. I'd expect this from the Democrats but the Republicans should be better than this. And as to her leadership abilities, she could be one amazing DPS and really be a great raid member. If I lived in Maine this would have instantly lost my vote.
October 5, 2012 at 7:23 am
This wouldn't make me lose my vote, but it certainly is worthy of a few facepalms.
October 5, 2012 at 3:15 pm
Oh, well, why not; we have a ward politician playing at being a president.
October 5, 2012 at 4:03 pm
Counter the spin, they're slamming her for being a jerk and playing during work hours.
Sure, it was written by folks who haven't played WoW, but so was comedy central's "campaigning in WoW" thing several years ago.
I do just love how she's being "outed"…when they got most of the quotes from her blogging about it on the Daily Kos.
October 5, 2012 at 8:40 pm
Lol. Really? This is absurd. I normally vote Republican, but if I lived in Maine something like this would make me rethink my vote this election.
I'm also thinking that the GOP in Maine might not appreciate just how many people play MMORPGS, and so this news article serves a double role as showing them to be completely out-of-touch which mainstream America. Sigh…
October 6, 2012 at 12:42 am
What if they're courting the Alliance player vote?
"Screw the Horde. Defeat Colleen Lachowicz."
October 6, 2012 at 3:32 am
That she's a Kos Kid would be enough disqualification.
October 6, 2012 at 7:41 pm
"Where was she when the Wargen attacked Gilneas? Vote Alliance; vote Republican. "
October 7, 2012 at 1:15 am
I would prefer my politicians to be tanks or heals too
October 8, 2012 at 5:55 pm
What I find just a little ironic is that the GOP in Maine wrote, "Maine needs a State Senator that lives in the real world, not in Colleen's fantasy world," yet has 'handily created a website entirely devoted to monitoring Lachowicz's gaming sessions and chronicling her posts to online gaming forums.'
… which means that significant man-hours are being used up in order to monitor all of this 'fantasy world' melodrama.
October 8, 2012 at 6:41 pm
which means that significant man-hours are being used up in order to monitor all of this 'fantasy world' melodrama.
No, it means that she posted it on the Kos site. That's how they found out that the user name is hers, one of her guild mates made a big post about how a guild leader and "Kossack" was running for office, and she thanked him for it.
Pretty obvious that someone ran into that, clicked on her name, went over the posts and comments and built the site without ever needing to log into WoW.