Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel." That famous saying -- attributed to dozens of politicians from Ben Franklin on -- still is quite appropriate. No matter that today's newspapers have far less clout than ink-buyers of the past, they can still administer punishment to those they feel disrespect them.

Paul LePage, the GOP candidate for governor, has discovered this the hard way. He spoke carelessly and then, when called on his remarks by reporters, announced he would no longer talk to them. Now that could be considered very disrespectful and the press, predictably, was not amused.

As a result, candidate LePage nearly drowned in a deluge of bad ink. One or two of the more partisan pundits emerged from the enemy camp to pronounce his candidacy DOA. Other critics, including some Republicans, didn't go quite that far, but the critical chorus was strident enough to give even the most loyal LePage supporters a case of the jitters.

Could it be that their candidate, the guy with the engaging personal story to tell, fresh from a surprisingly one-sided victory in the GOP primary had crashed and burned less than a month into his campaign?

That's surely what the state's Democratic hierarchy and its media allies hope, but it does not appear likely. LePage is not your average GOP candidate who (let's face it) has tended to be on the wimpy side in recent years.

As a tough kid who grew up in adoptive homes on the meanest streets of the inner city, the Lewiston native knows a thing or two about fighting back. Otherwise he could not lived the life he did and have risen to command the state's largest local retail enterprise. That takes guts and smarts.

Overall, it's a moving personal story that his opponents only wish they could tell. Yet somehow he got off on the wrong foot.

By now, LePage has probably figured out where he went wrong. Mainly that running a political campaign where all comments are exposed to instant public -- and, worse, media --interpretation is quite different than presiding over a closed retail empire where verbal missteps can be retroactively expunged.

Casual sound bites these days can be political killers, so candidates must guard against off-hand remarks or observations that cannot be proved factual. Of the several "controversial" comments LePage made on or before his now-infamous inaugural train trip, only two were damaging.

One was LePage's repeated allusion to an ethnic comment he insisted was made by a minor apparatchik in the Mitchell entourage. But the candidate could produce no evidence to back up his claim. Unnecessary and very bad. The other was his subsequent threat to avoid talking to media. That was just plain silly.

Other criticisms of LePage were marginal at best. On the charge he advocates teaching creationism as opposed to evolution. LePage's actual position -- that creationism not be completely disregarded -- seems not far from the dogma of his Roman Catholic faith, which is also the faith of more than 400,000 Mainers. Not only that, but the issue is far from the minds of most Mainers.

On the much criticized comment of his opponent's age, it's difficult to believe that an offhand comment made in jest (yeah, even though it was pretty juvenile) by a 61-year-old man about the age of a 70-year-old woman should be elevated into a major election issue. In any case it seemed to be a problem more for (mainly) youngish journalists than it did for the many Mainers who share the older demographic.

However, because of the distraction caused by the kerfuffle, it became obvious the candidate needed -- and now has reportedly acquired -- media advisors who have his ear and can watch his back and remind him what does and what doesn't play well with the honchos of those who who buy ink by the barrel. LePage's feisty up-by-his bootstraps background may fall short on this, something he should learn to recognize if he wants to pump new life into his campaign.

A good start might to get back on the train. Now there was an imaginative campaign gimmick that simply went to waste when the charges started flying.

For some time now, the argument has been made in this column that there's no such thing as an organized attempt by journalism's many liberals to push "progressive" causes. It may seem that way but the truth is simply that many more liberals than conservatives are drawn to print journalism. We're badly outnumbered (in Maine as elsewhere) and the result has been considerable imbalance in reporting and presenting the news.

This is not good, but only an outpouring of dedicated conservative recruits to the craft could change things anytime soon. However, until recently, the situation has remained manageable because most newsroom liberals have been more concerned with accurate reporting than in promoting ideology. I know that was true (for the most part) during the years I was one of the outnumbered few.

Now, however, thanks in part to fierce ideologues like those who have been sounding off in Journolist, the already large segment of the public that believes today's journalism is dishonest is growing.

Journolist is (or was) a private email group, or "list-serv," of about 400 journalists, mostly of the far-left persuasion, who share a common goal of fighting conservatives. Some of the 400 were opinion writers but many were well-known reporters or editors responsible for assignments or placement of news stories in major publications. Journolist's founder, Ezra Klein, is a staff blogger for the Washington Post and indeed several members of the group work at the Post. Other powerful national news organizations were similarly represented.

As a result of recent revelations about Journolist in the Daily Caller and other conservative websites, Klein has now closed down his site and attempts are being made to keep its membership secret. But some members' names have leaked out along with enough of their email commentary to convince many conservatives that this was in fact a group far more dedicated to beating on conservatives and perpetuating the Obama reign than to practicing journalism.

All that has alarmed the majority of liberal journalists who put their craft above their ideology. Roger Simon of The Politico has written a good column from his perspective as a liberal on what has become a major issue for his colleagues in today's journalism.

It's worth reading, even by -- or perhaps especially by -- conservatives.

A political season memo:

One sure way to attract attention to a political message is to send a Letter to the Editor (LTTE). This is a fact that Democrats have learned very well but Conservatives never seem to understand.

A quick Google search turns up a bunch of Maine liberal organizations that urge their members and admirers to write letters to the editor backing their cause de jour. Many include the postal and email addresses of the editors and some offer accurate suggestions about what makes an LTTE publishable. The same search produced no such advisories to conservatives.

So no wonder the LTTE columns are filled with many more letters espousing Democratic, liberal or lefty causes than those bearing Republican or conservative messages.

That's too bad for conservatives because -- make note of this -- LTTEs are (1) free and (2) very effective.

Surveys have shown that the letters column is always one of the best-read features of any newspaper. That's because smart newspapers insist LTTEs be kept short and therefore more readable than the longer columns or editorials on the same page.

Editors like to get a mix of letters. It is generally NOT true that they will pick out letters espousing the issues that a newspaper backs editorially. That may occur sometimes but not at a reputable paper. When it does happen, the editor should be confronted and an explanation demanded.

More often letters will be rejected because they're too long, too confused or even too abusive. An editor never wants to get sued for libel that appears in an LTTE. A typical and practical set of LTTE guidelines is offered by the Maine Women's Lobby, a liberal organization that asks its members to write their editors on behalf of women's causes. Note that it includes the mailing addresses of each Maine daily paper.

As a rule, letters that make a point in a rational way and without demeaning opposing viewpoints will almost always be published. Sometimes ugly or silly letters will make it through, but not often.

The lesson that conservatives ought to learn is that not a lot of writers dash off LTTEs in response to something that annoys them on a given day. Some do, sure, but more often letters result from campaigns staged by a variety of publicity-savvy organizations. And sadly for conservatives, most of them tend to be supporters of liberal causes.

That ought to change.

Where do people get their political insight these days? A brief survey of readers and reporters indicates that nobody is quite sure. Perhaps because there are now so few reliable sources to provide it.

Back in the glory days of Maine journalism this was not a problem. Veteran reporters like Doc Arnold of the Bangor Daily News and Pete Damborg of the Portland Press Herald, to name two of the more prominent, haunted every nook and cranny of the State House (not to mention political watering holes) digging out news.

But while they reported (and broke) many blockbuster news stories they did more than that. They were masters of the political column.

It was through their columns, which were must reading for every political groupie in Maine, that these reporters took readers behind the news. They used the columns to provide readers with a potpourri of bits and pieces of information about politicians and the State House.

The nuggets that comprised the columns were news, not opinion, although some columns also contained more than a touch of gossip -- a factor that only increased their appeal.

The columns, which usually appeared weekly, gave readers remarkable insight into what was going on in the the state's political world in an informal, even titillating, way that news stories could not.

They offered alerts to developing trends and revealed who was responsible for doing what in Augusta. They trumpeted the rising stars and noted failing careers. Often they exposed political poseurs and cast light on the machinations of would-be Capitol kingpins.

In other words the political columns were a fascinating conduits of information readers could not tap into elsewhere.

This tradition was later carried on by Don Hansen of the PH and Dave Rawson of the BDN. One politician famously defined the power of the political column when he confessed to Rawson that he "was afraid of what you'll might write about me but even more afraid you won't mention me at all."

It takes someone with extensive political knowledge of the state and many, many reliable sources to produce work compelling enough to inspire such a reaction from a seasoned politician. It also takes a writer who can inspire the confidence of politicians all all stripes. And today finding columnists who can resist becoming partisan (mostly liberal) ideologues is not easy.

So the political column no longer exists in Maine, at least not in the rousing form perfected by writers after World War II. And that's a shame, since a columnist with a finger on the people's pulse can be a powerful asset to a newspaper and its readers.

Consider, for example, the sweeping victory of Paul LePage in the recent GOP primary. It came as a huge surprise, even to many of the more sophisticated denizens of the political world.

Nobody -- no writers, no pollsters -- publicly foresaw the LePage sweep. But an astute political columnist might well have detected the trend much the same way Pete Damborg did in 1954 when he predicted Ed Muskie would be elected governor. Therein lies a story:

Few believed such an upset could or would happen. No polls were there to provide a hint,and the state seemed solidly Republican, as it had been for much of the time since the Civil War. But Damborg, whose sources were legion, was convinced change was in the offing and said so in his column. .

That prediction would have been a scoop of major proportions. But, alas, no readers saw it. It was spiked by a high ranking editor who thought he was saving his columnist from making an embarrassing error.

The story of the spiked column did not become public until much later. Word eventually got out and to this day it remains part of Maine's journalistic lore.

Footnote: After he retired Damborg sought election to the legislature as a Republican. And won.

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