The “Paul LePage, Maine’s Next Governor” Facebook page has declared it would rather not answer the policy questions of impertinent Mainers. Why? Because it says it is an “unofficial” “fan” page created by “volunteers” who adore the Republican candidate for Governor all on their own:
Page Policy
Paul LePage, Maine’s Next Governor is a fan page.
It was created by volunteer supporters of Paul LePage’s candidacy for Governor of Maine. For that reason, we cannot get into answering policy questions that get posted here.
Shifting gears for a moment, consider Maine WebPress. Maine WebPress is a web-consulting business owned by Aaron Prill, focusing on generating a social media web presence using Facebook pages:
The mission of MaineWebPress is to develop a professional, affordable and effective web presence for those who need them most- individuals and small service-oriented businesses.
MaineWebPress is a venture launched by Aaron Prill of Winterport, Maine.
A software developer by day, Aaron leads The MaineWebPress Team to create and manage websites as a secondary business opportunity for individuals and small businesses.
MaineWebPress is a team of contracted developers who partner with Aaron on an as-needed basic, working together to deliver timely and effective results to their clients.
MaineWebPress also specializes in the social media web- specifically custom facebook page development to reach a broader audience of potential customers, and ultimately leading these potential customers to their clients’ websites.
Take the Next Step!
Paul LePage’s campaign web page, lepage2010.com, is “Paid for and Authorized by the Committee to Elect Paul LePage Governor.” Who did the Committee pay?
Why, MaineWebPress:
A call today at 11:15 am to Rick Swanson, Treasurer of the Paul LePage campaign (207-877-7616) verifies that web hosting services are paid for by the campaign. In response to my inquiries, Swanson stated directly: “If someone’s providing web hosting, they’re getting paid for it for certain.”
Finally, who is the person who created the “Unofficial” “Volunteer” Paul LePage Facebook Page that insists it is only a “fan page“?
Why does this all matter? It matters because the “Unofficial” “Volunteer” Paul LePage Facebook page is created by Paul LePage’s official paid web guru. That’s a tacky bit of shadiness and dishonesty.
More than that, it matters because the Official “Unofficial” Paul LePage Facebook, created by the “Volunteer” Aaron Prill who is working as the paid web guru for the Paul LePage Campaign, is censoring more than one Maine citizen by deleting their posts for the offense of asking this question:
You’ve said you support the teaching of creationism.
…why?
The fact is that Paul LePage is a self-avowed creationist, and he has specifically expressed support for teaching creationism in Maine’s public schools. Paul LePage’s “unofficial” “volunteer” campaign Facebook page has taken pains to snuff out citizens’ irksome questions on the subject and to mask the page’s official paid connection to the campaign.
When there’s a coverup, there’s almost always something to uncover.
Hi, first let me say thank you for the promotion of my recently launched moonlighting web consulting business, Maine Web Press.
When you turned up in the search results of my name, I thought of just ignoring it. However, you misrepresent the truth so badly I’m going to throw you a bone and respond. Now, here are the facts- do with them what you want…
First, the Facebook Page-
> I created the Facebook page in February with the purpose of it being a FAN page where people could voice their support of Paul LePage. I was not connected with the campaign at this time, but did in fact contact them for permission. I did this because the campaign didn’t previously have a facebook fan page.
> Since then, especially after LePage won the nomination, the fan page took off in popularity. Given that, the campaign uses it as an obvious resource to reach supporters (i.e. fans). Not long after I created the page, I made an official campaign employee one of the Admins. To date, I myself am still not a campaign employee.
> With that said, I wanted it to remain a fan page with no intent on having to answer all the policy questions that come along. So after the issue you speak of, and the supposed censorship you speak of occurred, I added the “Page Policy” to make the page’s intent clearer.
Now, the new Website-
> Up until 2 weeks ago, the website was thrown together by a Bangor-area marketing company, and hosted with them.
> After Paul won the primary in June, I talked with the campaign and suggested we do a makeover. I offered my services and said I’d be happy to take lead on the project.
> While they have offered to compensate me at a later date, I have yet to receive any financial compensation for my efforts… so up to this point all of my work is in fact still volunteer.
> “Paid for and Authorized by” caption is there because it’s required to be. The campaign does pay for hosting, which is hosted by MediaTemple.net (a well known, separate web host not associated with my web consulting business Maine Web Press).
Any other questions?
Actually, I didn’t have questions for you. I posed rhetorical questions which I answered with statements, statements that were sourced with screen captures in case of denials later on. I don’t believe one of my statements is false, and I notice that you haven’t come right out and called them false either. I will have some questions for you at the end of some more statements, however.
You complain that you are not a “campaign employee” of the Paul LePage campaign. But I didn’t say you were. I said, accurately, that you are acting as web guru for the Paul LePage campaign. Your own website and Paul LePage’s website declare this to be so. I said, and you’ve acknowledged, that this work for the campaign is paid work; your arrangement with the LePage campaign is for you to be paid. When I spoke with Rick Swanson over the phone today, the name of “MaineWebPress” in relation to pay was specifically uttered. I’d like to be able to play you an audio recording of the conversation, but such a recording would have been illegal; you’ll have to take my word for that (I did take notes). You may not have received your paycheck yet, but that doesn’t alter the nature of your relationship with the campaign.
You’ve now further acknowledged that you put a LePage “official campaign employee” in an administrative positions with control over the content of the Facebook page that continues to assert its identity as a “Volunteer” “Unofficial” entity. That thickens the plot considerably.
So here are my two questions:
1. After acknowledging the deletion of questions about Paul LePage’s support for creationism in public schools, you now appear to be questioning that they occurred with the use of the phrase “the supposed censorship.” Do you or do you not acknowledge that questions about Paul LePage’s political support for creationism in public schools were deleted from the Facebook page in question?
2. If you do acknowledge that such deletions occurred, is the person who deleted the questions about Paul LePage’s support for creationism in public schools someone who has worked for pay (like you), as an employee or non-employee, for the LePage campaign?
P.S. In case anyone is wondering, and because turnabout is fair play: While I live in Maine, I haven’t been paid by a penny any of the gubernatorial campaigns or by any related political party.
P.P.S. By the way, nice web site design for Paul LePage. It’s got a nice style.
Aaron & Lepage campaign, I’m amused that you’re indignant about people who affiliate themselves with this politician in an online social forum wanting to have policy discussions there. May your censorship undermine your campaign as people notice the lack of substance.
Hey Jim, can you talk about me too? I would LOVE the publicity! Thanks!
Why, yes, I was already planning that. But since you ask so sweetly, I can bump up the schedule a bit.
Your name is Luke Thomas. On your public Facebook page you list your employment as
“Paul LePage Campaign
April 2010 – Present
Social Media/Tech Assistant
Augusta, Maine
I assist with the management of the Facebook page, as well as the blog. LePage 2010!”
In Maine campaign finance documentation, you are listed as a LePage “campaign worker” receiving a salary, verifying your claim.
So now we have two people doing work for pay for the Paul LePage campaign who have administrative control over the “unofficial” “volunteer” “fan page” for Paul LePage.
This further extends the LePage campaign’s responsibility for deleting the policy questions of Maine citizens.
Now that I’ve given you a little bit of publicity, Luke, would you please answer three questions for me? If you can’t, could you please forward these questions on to someone in the LePage campaign who can answer the questions?
1. Do you know who deleted Maine citizens’ questions about Paul LePage’s support for creationism in public schools from the web page run by at least two people working for the LePage campaign?
2. Has the person who deleted these Mainers’ questions about Paul LePage’s policies worked for pay for the LePage campaign or not?
3. How many people who have some sort of administrative control over the Paul LePage “unofficial” “volunteer” “fan page” have worked for pay for Paul LePage?
They’re simple questions, so I’m sure I should be receiving your answers very soon.
This is not true. My comment was deleted with that policy in tact. Then others were deleted in the following days. With more favorable questions, either policy statements are made (such as by Lauren LePage) or users are directed to ask the LePage campaign directly. Of course, asking them directly means going to the lepage2010.com website – a website which links back to the Facebook page, calling it a way “to connect” with the LePage campaign.
So, Michael, it seems that we now have two Paul LePage campaign workers engaged in an attempted coverup of censorship of Maine voters.
I think it’s time that Paul LePage publicly speaks about this crisis within his campaign staff. Does LePage condone or condemn their behavior?
This is all interesting. Would it clear things up if the unofficial site, which is a FAN page not a discussion forum, clearly stated that it was run by um, fans, and some paid members, and the official site clarified the fan page is for supporters? As an unofficial page they have every right to delete what they want. As with any fan site I would expect the admins to be supporters and not consider the site reliable for info. It isn’t journalism but a fan page. Maybe create an unofficial fan page for those NOT supporting a candidate.
So perhaps just clarifying up front on the official site what the role and intent is of the fan page would ease things. Just as this page has no journalistic integrity required neither does an equally opinionated facebook page. Aaron and Luke, why not make up a formal discussion forum for the official site? And ask the other candidates why they don’t support creationism on their sites. Or offer to make their discussion boards too.
Well, it certainly IS interesting that paid employees of the Paul LePage campaign have been censoring voters’ comments.
Why is Paul LePage remaining silent? Is he hoping it will just blow over?
Are LePage’s campaign workers keeping their activities secret from him? Can Paul LePage maintain control over his own campaign?
Just sayin… as his wife who runs the checkbook, we ain’t seen a dime.
But to add my two cents, the unofficial volunteer created facebook fan page serves an entirely different purpose than the official website. People need to read the purposes and use the pages accordingly.
Personally, just my opinion, I don’t think controversial statements or questions should be removed. Every candidate needs to have reasons behind their stand on the issues, and they should answer questions in the proper context. As clearly stated, that is the OFFICIAL WEBSITE. Not the fan-created social media page.
But S. Prill, what you call the “fan-created social media page” was not a fan-created social media page! That turned out to be a lie! It turned out to be a creation of the campaign itself, created by two people paid to work for the Paul LePage campaign.
It was a fraud, and it censored Maine voters.
Will Paul LePage allow these sorts of shenanigans by his own campaign workers? Is he so ineffective a leader that he can’t control his own campaign? Or, does Paul LePage condone the censorship of Maine voters?
J. Clifford- the only person that spouts lies is you.
Let me go over the FACTS AGAIN-
> The facebook page was in fact created by a FAN (me) in February BEFORE any association with the campaign.
> I added the page policy AFTER the stuff was deleted so everyone would be on the same page. There is a creationism comment on the page RIGHT NOW that has not been deleted… feel free to chime in.
> Paul LePage has better things to worry about than what a bunch of fans say on a fan-supported facebook page. So your “controlling the campaign” line is lame.
> Paul LePage does not condone censorship. He is a true conservative with libertarian leanings, and Maine will be a MUCH MORE FREE STATE under his leadership than the socialist liberals that have been running this state for more than a generation.
> Your website, and this article, is one big fat JOKE. Get over yourself.
Aaron, you are in an agreement with the Paul LePage campaign to be paid money for your organization of online resources, are you not? The Facebook page is being administered by a person who is in an agreement to be paid money by the Paul LePage campaign, is it not?
If Paul LePage doesn’t condone censorship, why is he employing people who censor the opinions of Maine voters? Paying money to people who censor Maine voters sounds like a pretty solid form of condoning to me.
I’m sorry that you think that Paul LePage has better things to do than listening to voters, and engaging in effective management of his own campaign. I think that if LePage can’t keep his own campaign under control, allowing paid campaign workers to go rogue, he’s not likely to be able to handle his own staff in high elected office.
Finally, I don’t tell fat jokes. I think they’re rude to people who are battling obesity.
Aaron, are you now denying, after you earlier acknowledged it, that people’s comments asking about Paul LePage’s support for creationism in public schools were deleted from the Facebook page controlled by you and one other person being paid by the LePage campaign?
And please don’t get silly. There are questions about creationism up there now, but only after the dates when the Facebook page got caught deleting questions and after the dates when that fact was talked about in public.
J. Clifford, to be clear, Aaron Prill initially CREATED the page when he was a volunteer. He continues to create and administer it now.
But what’s important is that he is administering the Facebook page now as someone who’s in an arrangement to work for pay for the Paul LePage campaign. We also know now that that there is at least one other person whose job it is with the Paul LePage campaign is to administer the Facebook page.
This has been the state of things since June, which is when people asking questions about Paul LePage’s support for creationism in public schools had their questions deleted — apparently between June 23 and June 25. Other people who asked different questions in June didn’t have their questions deleted.
Paul Lepage along with six other canidates at the time was asked at a debate”Do you believe Creationism and would you support it being taught in schools?” Lepage being a Catholic said yes, because he believes in it. Some people believe we walked from apes,and some believe we came from Pond scum. Now the Left has ran with it and is acting like Lepage is going to jam it down everyones throat like the left did with Homesexual marriage(or so they thought)If this is all the left can come up with it will be a very long Autumn for all of you.
Brian, you left out very important parts of what Paul LePage said. I suspect you did it on purpose.
Paul LePage said “Yes and Yes” to the question “Do you believe in creationism, and do you think it should be taught in Maine public schools?”
http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2010/06/09/meet-paul-lepage-creationist-for-governor-of-maine/
Yes, he’s a creationist. Fine, that’s his own personal business.
Yes, he supports creationism being taught in public schools. That’s a policy position, Brian, and it’s a position in which he’s declared taking his personal religious views and having them become part of what’s taught in Maine public schools.
Don’t tell me that Paul LePage telling me what he wants to see taught in Maine public schools is not relevant to his run for statewide political office in the state of Maine. That’s as ridiculous as your redacting of both the debate question and the debate answer.
Brian, if you would read this article, you’d see that there are many more problems with Paul LePage than his ideological extremism. In this article, dishonest and censorship of Maine voters is uncovered.
Are you willing to elect someone like Paul LePage, whose campaign organization tries to deceive and and then silence the voters of Maine?
Given the number of worried Paul LePage supporters leaving defensive comments here, I’d say that the LePage campaign is starting to get worried.
Ok- after having a night to sleep on this I’ve come to the conclusion that we are all right… in our own minds.
As far as the censorship issue, let’s just agree to disagree. I could make the argument that this is a FAN PAGE and we are free to delete whatever we want. If this was a fan page of Coca-Cola and you supported Pepsi, your posts would be deleted- that’s just marketing/PR. However, with that said Facebook makes it easy to remove/delete things, but not easy to get them back. If we had it to do over again, whatever posts that got removed would be back, and all posts would have just been left on the page. Since the incident on or around June 25th, it has been the policy of the page to just let everything be… and that’s how it is- period… no censorship (aside from vulgarity or SPAM).
And yes, I can’t wait to get my big fat check from the LePage campaign for the work I’ve done both at http://facebook.com/mainesnextgov and http://lepage2010.com …I could even help you redesign IrregularTimes if the price is right.
Have a good one everyone, and get used to saying “Governor LePage” because it will be reality come November, and Maine will be better for it!
This can’t-we-all-just-get-along attitude is nice, but you’re not addressing an important question: Will the Paul LePage campaign continue the deceptive practice of claiming that a Facebook page maintained by people paid by the campaign is simply an unofficial fan page?
Don’t the people of Maine deserve to know what the Paul LePage campaign is really doing? Would Paul LePage continue this use of hidden political propaganda as Governor of Maine?
Dude, what are you continuing to ramble on about?!
The fan page IS an “Official FAN page of the LePage Campaign”… There’s nothing unofficial about it- where does it say that it is unofficial??
It is NOT an “Official Discuss Every Policy Question with People that Support Other Candidates page” so policy issues are not going to be addressed by the campaign on the page… How is that deceptive?
After the issue was raised in public by people who had their questions deleted, the deletions stopped and the LePage campaign conspicuously reversed course. I’m pretty confident the deletions won’t happen again, especially because those people made a public stink about the deletions.
What’s interesting to me is why the particular questions being deleted by people paid by the LePage camapaign were about Paul LePage’s very clear debate declaration that he supported creationism being put in public schools, while other contemporaneous policy questions were not deleted.
I get that Aaron and Luke are not going to answer that question. It’s interesting that they won’t, but I’m not going to open a court case about it. I think the refusal to talk about that decision says something all on its own.
We know who is scared, grasping at straws and trying to Bait Debate. Your people’s monarchy is coming to an end!! Keep up the good work with the Creationism thing, it will backfire on you. they say only about 8% of the population are churchgoers, if the left keeps harping on them and ridiculing them that 100,000 of the Population will show up in droves like last November!!! See ya later Monkey boyz’
How interesting that you turn our mention of Paul LePage’s avowed support for inserting his religion into public school into an “attack” on religion. Is religion “attacked” whenever someone tries to get in the way of government-based proselytization?
Creationism is for Sunday School. Science is for public school. Paul LePage explicitly supports moving creationism from Sunday School into public school. The problem isn’t Paul LePage’s religious beliefs. The problem is that Paul LePage wants to insert his religion into public schools. I’d bet you that a majority of churchgoers in Maine understand the difference, even if you do not.
I have some questions for Paul LePage to answer also!
http://whitenoiseinsanity.com/2010/07/21/who-is-paul-lepage-and-why-do-i-plug-my-nose-when-i-see-his-name/comment-page-1/#comment-81032
Just a yes or no answer would be great! Thanks.
You know, Kay, I don’t like Paul LePage’s policies or his campaigning tendencies any more than the next person here in Maine, but your questions strike me as personal rather than focused on the ethics of LePage’s campaign or LePage’s policy ideas.
More practically, I don’t know Paul LePage could possibly answer this question of yours: “Is it true that one of my source’s friends relative has worked for Marden’s for 20 years and still makes the same pay as she did when she started?”
They are personal questions…ones I would like answered. Does he have motorcycle gang friends? I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the idea of having a governor with motorcycle gang friends! You may, but I don’t.
The question you focused on. Here’s my answer: Yes, that question would be difficult for him to answer since I didn’t name a name, but I would like for him to comment on if there are employees who have not gotten a raise in years. He should be able to answer that question rather quickly.