Susan Inman,
the Democratic candidate for secretary of state, details here a dirty trick by Secretary of State Mark Martin, using public dollars.

Martin sent a Capitol cop, with a cease-and-desist letter drafted by a staff attorney, to Inman’s campaign because her website used the same page from a state website for looking up voter information. The secretary of state claimed this was a misuse of copyright, which the state doesn’t hold in the first place. Inman’s page showed the software creator’s name. I wouldn’t like anyone’s chances of making a copyright claim on Inman’s providing free access to software paid for by the public for the public to use. 

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Martin won’t debate Inman and she sets out in detail the record that he came up with a last-minute excuse to avoid appearing on AETN with his opponents. He has misused office money. He spends days away from the office but piddles on Facebook. He makes bogus complaints against an opponent and uses publicly paid employees to advance his campaign strategy. But his name is the same as that of a famous race car driver and he’s a Republican. He thinks that’s enough. It might be.

Said Inman:

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“I am extremely disappointed that Mark Martin would use his state staff to engage in an obvious attempt to bully me,” said Susan Inman. “Mark Martin had a bad week, started by the Blue Hog Report who reported his pitiful attendance record and ending with his own refusal of debating with me on public television. He can’t bring himself to defend his own failed record, but is so frustrated that he misuses state funds, again, for his own political gain.”

“The Secretary of State’s claims are meritless at best, and at worst, a gross misinterpretation of copyright law, designed to intimidate the Inman Campaign, mislead the public, and divert attention from Mark Martin’s misuse of state taxpayer money and lack of leadership in his own office. The letter and subsequent news reports from the letter contain assertions that are simply untrue,” continued Inman.

PS — It is to laugh that Martin gave a rare interview to the Democrat-Gazette and said this about his reticence:

“I feel like politics in general has become very childish. And the accusations that go back and forth in politics are just unbecoming. I’ve really struggled with a way to actually deal with this as an adult and maintain the integrity and dignity that the secretary of state’s office deserves. So, what I want to do is actually focus on what we’ve achieved rather than focus on those types of accusations that are just all too common in politics today.”

This from a candidate who ran a slime-laden campaign against Pat O’Brien to win the office in 2010. This from a candidate, who probably as he spoke to the Democrat-Gazette, was cooking up this bogus copyright stunt and leaking crap to a friendly news outlet in Northwest Arkansas. Unbecoming? Good word.

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