How dare those gutter-dwelling Democrats, resorting to “personal attacks” in a news release criticizing Randy Brock and his special guest, Maine’s Tea Party Governor Paul LePage.

I put “personal attacks” in quotes, because the accusation comes from the VTGOP, and it’s nonsense.

LePage won the Maine governorship narrowly in a three-way race with less than 40% of the vote. Since then, he’s taken a hard-right course, including the passage of insurance-industry-friendly “health care reform.” He’ll be headlining a Brock fundraiser later this week.

The Dems called the LePage invite a sign of Brock’s “allegiance to a radically conservative Republican agenda.” VDP chair Jake Perkinson added:

If Vermonters want a taste of what Randy Brock would do as governor, they should look toMaine, where Governor LePage is overseeing a massive effort to cut essential public services, eviscerate collective bargaining, and make affordable health care even farther out of reach for Mainers.

Perkinson had a solid basis for his words, since LePage is, in fact, a hard-right conservative. And there is, in fact, a solid Brock/LePage connection; Brock is consulting on health-care issues with Tarren Bragdon, the baby-faced ideologue who masterminded LePage’s health care plan.

After the jump: Sombody call an amberlamps! We got us an outbreak of BKS!

But the Dems’ release prompted a sudden onset of Bunched Knicker Syndrome at the top of the VTGOP, with Brock calling it “one of a series of nasty personal attacks coming out of the Vermont Democratic Party,” and VTGOP chair Jack Lindley really going over the top, railing at “the flamethrowers at the Vermont Democratic Party” and “the name callers who dwell in the bowels of the Vermont Democratic Party.”

Let me explain something to Randy and Jack. (I use their first names because they’re acting like children.) The Democrats’ attack was against LePage’s politics, and by extension Randy Brock’s. It was not, in fact, personal at all*.

Your attack on the Dems, on the other hand, was very personal and had nothing to do with policy or politics. “The bowels of the VDP,” indeed. You, good sirs, need to take a look in the mirror before you get out your flamethrowers again.

*Just for contrast, here’s a good example of a personal attack. The story goes that when Lyndon Johnson was running for Congress early in his career, he wanted to spread a rumor that his opponent enjoyed carnal knowledge with pigs. His campaign manager objected, “Lyndon, you know that’s not true!” Johnson replied, “I know, but let’s make the son-of-a-bitch deny it.”

Now there, Randy and Jack, is a personal attack. For your homework, compare and contrast with Jake Perkinson’s issue-focused news release.