We all recognize the rough and tumble of Maine politics. Mainers are passionate about state and local government, and are blunt with their views, particularly during a heated election campaign.

Voters listen to one side, then the other. They talk to their friends, consider newspaper articles and watch TV debates before going to the polls.

The most persuasive candidate wins, and that’s how it’s supposed to work.

That process was abused in November by both Democrats and Republicans who ran TV ads and distributed fliers attacking opposing candidates with allegations that bore little resemblance to the truth.

Last week, we criticized the state Democratic Party leadership for several misleading fliers directed at governor candidate Eliot Cutler.

Equally guilty is the Republican State Leadership Committee that dumped $400,000 worth of attack ads on five Democratic Senate candidates, including Deb Simpson of Auburn.

Simpson and the other four candidates were all defeated and are out of office.

Perhaps they deserved to lose. Perhaps they were even destined to lose in a Republican year. But they didn’t deserve to lose their reputations in the process.

One of those candidates, Jim Schatz of Blue Hill, who was running for a Senate seat after three terms in the House, has filed a libel suit against the organizations that generated the ads, according to a Maine Public Broadcasting story by Susan Sharon.

Schatz is a 16-year member of his town’s Board of Selectmen. The Republican Committee, in a series of TV and print ads, claimed Schatz canceled the local Fourth of July fireworks and then spent $10,000 on a political organization.

The clear implication was that Schatz had misappropriated taxpayer money.

“So the message sent around to the public was that I kind of abused my office. And actually those things, if they had been true, would be felonies,” Schatz told MPBN. “You know, taking the public money, public funds, for personal reasons.”

In other words, the ads claimed Schatz was a thief.

In reality, he had voted in favor of the fireworks display, and the $10,000 was appropriated at town meeting to fight school consolidation. It had nothing to do with the fireworks.

Yes, Schatz voted in favor of the donation, but so did a majority of his fellow citizens at town meeting.

The ads were wrong, and even Schatz’s opponent resents the way his reputation was impugned by the ads.

“These folks came out of nowhere, from 40,000 feet, drop a bomb and then disappear … ,” Republican Brian Langley of Ellsworth told MPBN.

Public figures, like Schatz, must meet a very high standard to prove libel. They must show the statements were defamatory and that the Leadership Committee acted with actual malice or reckless disregard of the truth, both of which are difficult to establish.

Even if he does not win, the suit will draw attention to the issue of national groups unfairly intruding upon Maine’s electoral process.

It may also give Schatz his day in court, and an opportunity to confront the people who called him a thief.

editorialboard@sunjournal.com