I’m one of the creators of The Cutler Files.

It was a short-lived website launched with all the best intentions that sort of backfired.

The idea was to set the record straight and tell the truth about a candidate for governor who we believed was fudging his record, misleading the voters and being less than candid about his past – character traits that should have attracted intense scrutiny by the mainstream news media.

But for some reason, Eliot Cutler – unlike other candidates in the race for Maine governor – was getting a free pass. His statements were unchallenged, the tough questions were never asked and the blanks in his resume remained unfilled.

So, The Cutler Files, we believed, would provide voters with the facts and help sketch in the details that newspaper and television profiles were leaving out.

Trouble is, the news media ignored the substance of The Cutler Files – I doubt many reporters even read it – and instead focused on a who-done-it search to uncover the identities of the website’s anonymous authors. The authors of the website were vilified, the candidate played the victim and freedom of speech took a major hit from which it may not recover.

So, by popular demand, here’s the full story of The Cutler Files, a $90 website that became front page news and, at least according to some reports, was a key factor in the defeat of Cutler’s $2.6 million campaign for governor.

First, a few points:

• We firmly reject the notion that The Cutler Files was a “smear” tactic, a “dirty trick” or “character assassination.” It was online journalism, pure and simple, mixed with some opinion (and a bit of humor). As someone who was a journalist in Maine for more than 15 years before entering politics 20 years ago, I know the difference.

• We stand behind everything we wrote on the Cutler Files. To this day, no one – not a reporter, an editor or even Cutler himself – has contradicted a single statement on The Cutler Files.

• The Cutler Files was the sole creation of two individuals (me and a person who shall be referred to as John Doe 1), with minor contributions from a few other people. The site was not authorized by and had no connection to any political candidate, campaign, party or PAC. Except for its creators, no one at the time of its launch was even aware of its existence.

• No one was paid to conduct the research or design the website. John Doe 1 did most of the research, which consisted almost exclusively of late-night Google searches at his home, and I put the website together on my MacBook Pro using preinstalled software called iWeb. It was flattering as well as hilarious when Cutler’s pollster told the Ethics Commission that The Cutler Files was “a clear and standard piece of professional opposition research work, for which persons within the campaign industry will often expend considerable sums to have produced.” (This guy is obviously overpaid. And if anyone was paying attention, his statement seemed to attest to the accuracy of the website; who would pay “considerable sums” for bogus opposition research?)

• We decided to remain anonymous for several reasons: we wanted the material to speak for itself (and again if anyone was watching, The Cutler Files contained several revelations we thought worthy of front-page treatment by themselves). Also, since both of its authors had connections to Maine politics (I was actually working on the campaign of independent candidate Shawn Moody), we felt that putting our names on the site would lead people to conclude, incorrectly, that a political party or candidate was actually behind the website (unfortunately, it had the reverse effect; many people speculated that another candidate was behind it anyway). And we didn’t want to be financially burdened by a frivolous lawsuit from Cutler, well known for his thin skin and big bucks, which we considered a real possibility. Maybe our lives weren’t at risk like the anonymous authors of The Federalist Papers, but our livelihoods might be.

• Despite the ruling by the Ethics Commission (which may be appealed), I don’t believe I broke the law by failing to put a disclaimer on the website during its first days of operation. I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t really understand how two people can create a website that supposedly violates campaign laws, but only one of them gets fined – just $200 (John Doe 1, who has chosen to stay anonymous, has been exonerated by the Commission). If The Cutler Files broke the law, than every political website, blog and blogger are now in the cross hairs of any thin-skinned political candidate who wants to silence criticism and dissent.

• It was laughable, to say the least, to read editorials condemning us for remaining anonymous in newspapers that have for years permitted the most vitriolic, ugly anonymous attacks from “readers” on their websites. (And the editors are kidding themselves if they believe that many of those anonymous reader’s comments aren’t the work of paid agents from political campaigns.) Even anonymous bloggers were condemning us as cowards for not using our real names. Go figure.
  

• Call us naïve, but we never anticipated the fallout and impact of The Cutler Files. We figured we’d launch the site and do nothing else, and maybe a few curious journalists would find some information to generate their own background stories on Cutler. That was the aim anyway. But then, in what has to be one of the dumbest political moves since Bill Clinton got frisky with a White House intern, Cutler complained to the Maine Ethics Commission, putting what was an obscure, overlooked website on the front pages of every newspaper in Maine. Instantly, visits to the website went from a few hundred a day to over 5,000, and every time it made the news, traffic swelled. Ironically, Cutler himself was the biggest promoter of The Cutler Files.

How it all Began

The origin of the Cutler Files goes back to mid 2009. An acquaintance, John Doe 1, mentioned to me that he thought Cutler was lying about his background or at least obscuring the truth on the campaign trail.

He pointed out several examples: when asked about his background, Cutler said in several interviews (the audio was later posted on The Cutler Files site) that he grew up in Bangor, was educated in Bangor schools, went to work in Washington after college, started his own law firm, lived a few years in China, then moved back to Maine “for good” in 1999.

The statement contained at least two outright falsehoods and omitted certain other details. Cutler did grow up in Bangor and he was educated in Bangor schools – until he left Maine after his freshman year of high school to attend an elite Ivy League prep school in Massachusetts. He didn’t move to Maine “for good” in 1999, at least not by any standard definition. He bought property in Maine, but lived mostly in Washington, DC, and from 2007 to 2009, he lived in China. The country, not the town outside of Augusta. Yet in several interviews, Cutler made it sound like he moved to Maine after living in China.

I had to admit, it seemed like small potatoes. But John Doe 1 was bothered. He felt it reflected a pattern, a deliberate attempt by Cutler to gloss over certain parts of his resume to make him more acceptable to voters. The details were insignificant – who cared if he lived in China or went to a prep school? It was the way Cutler routinely misrepresented the details or omitted critical facts that became the issue.

I was busy on a political campaign and with other clients at the time so I didn’t really pay much attention to Cutler. In fact, I thought Cutler’s campaign was a non-starter. I just couldn’t see how Maine voters would warm up to the guy. He had lived most of his adult life outside of Maine, he wasn’t well known, and certainly hadn’t accomplished much of anything in his native state. At the time, Cutler was polling in the single digits, and I was convinced he would stay there.

So I ignored him. But John Doe 1 didn’t. JD1 is not some jaded, cynical campaign operative, so Cutler’s attempts to guild the lily – and the news media’s apparent lack of interest in the truth – particularly astounded and frustrated him.

Sometime in June, after the Primaries ended, I spoke again with JD1 about Cutler. By this time, he had compiled a thick, three-ring binder of research material, on his own, culled from hundreds of Google searches. It was a strictly amateur endeavor, or passion, but the material was compelling. While a few tidbits about Cutler’s past had trickled out – mostly on political blogs – the stuff JD1 had uncovered was revelatory. Much of it contradicted statements Cutler had made or raised new questions about his background.

Of course, news reporters will claim that they thoroughly explored Cutler’s past, and with umpteen candidates running for governor this cycle, maybe we should cut the press some slack, particularly since for most of the campaign, Cutler was polling in the single digits and didn’t appear to be much of a factor. On the other hand, if you think the press told you all you need to know about Cutler, than you should be able to answer a simple question: how did he make his millions? Bet you don’t know (unless you read The Cutler Files).

It seems like a logical and relevant question to ask of a candidate. It was when I worked for Angus King. During his 1994 race, reporters poured over every aspect of his business background. Hardly a day went by that we didn’t have to answer detailed questions about Angus’ energy company, how he started it and later sold it, how much he got for it, how many people he employed, etc.  And other candidates I’ve worked for have been the subject of anonymous websites – you just didn’t hear about them because the candidates didn’t complain to the Ethics Commission.

But compared to the proctologic examination that most of the other candidates received, Cutler got off easy. Knowing all he had learned about Cutler, JD1 was convinced the press was going easy on him, particularly compared to Paul LePage whose every utterance seemed to generate contradictions and controversy in the press.

By late August, the idea emerged to simply put the stuff up on the web and let the voters decide. It was a simple (and inexpensive) matter to register the private domain name and buy the server space. I snatched a few pictures off the web and photo-shopped Cutler’s image into them, downloaded video and audio clips, all very simple. The total cost, including a few news articles downloaded from newspaper archive sites, was less than $100. (We provided receipts for all of this to the Ethics Commission).

What often gets lost in the reporting about The Cutler Files is that in essence, it was simply a news aggregator. Every article we posted contained numerous links to the source material. There were no wild, unsubstantiated or hateful accusations typical of smear tactics. Instead, everything was documented, with nearly 100 links to the original source material, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times and numerous regional newspapers. When Cutler claimed that Thornburg Mortgage, the bankrupt company on whose board he sat, was not involved in the type of subprime lending that brought the entire US banking system to its knees, we quoted credible analysts and provided links to articles and even books that said just the opposite. When Cutler claimed ignorance about his law firm’s work for a Chinese oil company, we provided links to interviews in which Cutler practically bragged about his involvement (and pointed out that Cutler sat on the board of a huge mutual fund that had a major financial stake in the same Chinese oil company – how could he not know?). When Cutler credited Bangor schools in his TV ads and web videos for giving him the foundation for his success, we unearthed an interview from eight years ago in which he said he couldn't get out of Bangor fast enough when he was a teenager because he never would have gotten the education that led to his success. When Cutler said in ads and speeches that he helped build airports all over the US, we provided links showing that in fact he made his reputation – and money – helping to block the construction of airports.

Any of these claims and contradictions would have merited front page treatment if the candidate was say Paul LePage. But Cutler managed to escape scrutiny by the state's largest newspapers, which enthusiastically endorsed Cutler for governor.

One posting particularly riled Cutler. It concerned the 1977 collapse of a private dam in Georgia that killed 39 people. At the time, Cutler was an associate director of the Office of Management and Budget, which was severely criticized by Congress for dragging its feet on authorizing the money for the inspection of private dams, precisely what could have prevented the Georgia collapse. In fact, the day the dam collapsed the paperwork to authorize the dam inspections was literally sitting on Cutler’s desk. Since Cutler often spoke glowingly about his record at OMB, we merely asked the question if that record also included some responsibility for the collapse of the dam in Georgia. We didn’t make this stuff up. The details came from a 1977 Pulitzer Prize winning article in the Los Angeles Times entitled, “Mid-Level Budget Officials Blocked Dam Inspections.” Now, who do you suppose they were talking about?

After the site went live, it quickly attracted the attention of several political blogs like Dirigo Blue, Pine Tree Politics and As Maine Goes. Not surprising since nearly every major political story during the 2010 campaign was first reported by the blogs, signaling a major shift in news gathering and reporting away from traditional media. But the impact of the blogs in Maine is still small. Visits to The Cutler Files numbered in the low hundreds. The traditional media ignored it.

Until, that is, Cutler filed a complaint with the Maine Ethics Commission. Then the mainstream press covered it and visits to the website skyrocketed.

Having worked in politics and political campaigns for many years, I guess I should have realized that the website would be considered campaign material that required some kind of disclaimer. I honestly didn’t. I saw the website as no different than the aforementioned political blogs, which routinely carry anonymous postings regarding political candidates. I even joked that we should have just posted The Cutler Files as an extended “readers comment” on the Press Herald website. No problem there.

As readers of my blog know, I’ve never really liked those anonymous readers comments on the websites of Maine newspapers. I’ve been a victim numerous times of vicious, personal attacks on these sites, but I’m a big boy and they don’t really bother me. Only once I complained after some anonymous jughead suggested I should be murdered. I thought that was going a bit too far, so I talked to an editor at the Press Herald and he just shrugged and defended the free expression of ideas on their website.

So I honestly thought The Cutler Files was no different. It was simply a website that was providing information about a candidate running for office. Cutler, of course, didn’t see it that way. His lawyers fired off letters to the company that registered the domain name threatening legal action if they didn’t reveal our identities. Some of Cutler’s other statements to the Ethics Commission were downright chilling for free speech. He seemed to argue that only traditional media outlets and licensed broadcast facilities have free speech rights or exemptions from disclaimers, not blogs or websites, and his lawyers wrote, “Even private individuals may constitutionally be made subject to disclaimer requirements” during candidate elections. Really? Is that the society Cutler envisions?

Newspaper editorials also criticized our anonymity. But I detected a bit of embarrassment on their part since the newspapers are also big defenders of anonymous free speech on their websites. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the day the Lewiston Sun Journal printed a biting editorial calling us cowards for not revealing our identities they also changed their policy and no longer will allow anonymous postings on their website.

In the end, the Ethics Commission ignored most of Cutler’s arguments, thankfully. But the Commission was bothered by the fact that I worked on The Cutler Files while simultaneously working for another candidate for governor. But that’s precisely one of the reasons why I chose to be anonymous: to protect Shawn Moody, one of the most decent, honest and likable guys ever to run for higher office. He had nothing to do with The Cutler Files and I didn’t want anyone to think he did. But I don’t really think I give up my rights to free speech – even anonymous free speech – on my own time when I go to work for a political campaign. Also, the website wasn’t designed to aid a particular candidate. I’m quite sure that JD1 and me voted for different candidates for governor.

When the press started badgering me about whether I was behind The Cutler Files, I tried very hard not to lie. I said things like, “I wish I could take full responsibility for it,” and that would get shorthanded in news accounts as, “Bailey denied involvement in The Cutler Files.” Of course under the circumstances, I didn’t call back to correct the error. I regret that I couldn't be completely open, but I did it solely to protect Shawn from any negative fallout. I’d take a bullet for the guy, and in some ways I feel like I did.

So did The Cutler Files accomplish its goal? Nope. No one really paid any attention to what we wrote, only who was behind it. Did it have an impact on the outcome of the election? Probably not. When the site when live, Cutler was polling close to single digits and he finished well above that, so it would be hard to argue that The Cutler Files was a much of factor in his defeat.

Cutler’s people of course argued that the site represented a major departure from traditional Maine politics, and they might be right, sort of. The fact is that any candidate running for office today is going to have to deal with chatter and accusations on the web. News is no longer the domain of newspapers, it belongs to whomever has an Internet connection and some rudimentary website skills, and a $200 fine is certainly not going to deter future Cutler Files. That’s life in the information age and it’s surprising to me that Cutler and his lawyers didn’t seem to understand this. (In one of their many letters to the Ethics Commission, they claimed that the research was obviously the work of professionals since we quoted an editorial from a foreign-language newspaper that we translated from a Chinese dialect into English. We didn’t, but even if we did Cutler should know that there’s this thing called Google that will translate virtually any article into English at the push of a button. Welcome to the 21^st Century.)

But as I tell my clients who are facing a crisis, the attacks aren’t so much the problem it’s how you respond to them. In this, Cutler failed, big time. If he didn’t want The Cutler Files to be a factor in the race, he should have ignored it. If he felt the criticism was unfair or untrue, he could have addressed it. He never did. Instead, he lawyered up and made a series of specious arguments against the exercise of free speech and opinion.

The whole episode seems much ado about very little, except that it became a bigger issue because of his actions, not ours. I never felt it was important who wrote the material (does anyone really know or care who really writes editorials in local newspapers?), it was the material itself that mattered. But the news media, and Cutler, didn’t see it that way.

So no hard feelings, Eliot. Better luck next time and happy holidays.