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Maine politician attacked for playing games

State Republican party says World of Warcraft player's hobby reflects poorly on her work ethic, maturity

Maine state Senate candidate Colleen Lachowicz plays World of Warcraft, a fact her opposition thinks is good reason to not vote for her. The Maine Republican Party this week launched a website called Colleen's World, attacking the Democratic candidate's penchant for playing an orc assassin rogue in Blizzard Entertainment's MMORPG.

As the site states, "In Colleen's online fantasy world, she gets away with crude, vicious and violent comments like the ones below. Maine needs a State Senator that lives in the real world, not in Colleen's fantasy world." The website also includes a picture of her World of Warcraft character and excerpts from her personal blog, where she uses profanity, makes violent comments ("Now if you'll excuse me, I may have to go and hunt down Grover Norquist and drown HIM in my bathtub."), and jokes about her guild being socialist.

Maine GOP party spokesman David Sorenson defended the site to Politico, saying, "We think anyone making comments about drowning Grover Norquist and stabbing things shows a shocking level of immaturity and poor judgment that voters should know about. Certainly the fact that she spends so much time on a video game says something about her work ethic and, again, her immaturity."

Lachowicz's actual opponent in the campaign, Republican state Senator Tom Martin, told Politico he was unaware of the site and disliked mudslinging in political campaigns.

In a response on her campaign site, Lachowicz said, "What's really weird is that the Republicans are going after my hobbies instead of talking about their record while they've been running Augusta for the last two years. Instead of talking about what they're doing for Maine people, they're making fun of me for playing video games. Did you know that more people over the age of 50 play video games than under the age of 18? As a gamer, I'm in good company with folks like Jodie Foster, Vin Diesel, Mike Myers, and Robin Williams. Maybe it's the Republican Party that is out of touch."

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Brendan Sinclair avatar

Brendan Sinclair

Managing Editor

Brendan joined GamesIndustry.biz in 2012. Based in Toronto, Ontario, he was previously senior news editor at GameSpot in the US.

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