Maine Democrats have made GOP Sen. Paul Davis the unwilling star of their newly revamped Web site, seeking to paint State House Republicans as naysayers.

The site, www.mainedems.org, features a two-minute, 45-second film showing a crudely animated likeness of Davis, the Senate minority leader from Sangerville, saying “no,” to a number of Democratic initiatives including health care and property tax reforms.

Maine Democratic Party leaders equated the spot to the humorous “Jib-Jab” animated movies that garnered much media attention during the presidential election. But Pat Colwell, the new chairman of the Maine Democratic Party, said there was a message in the merriment.

“The goal is to get the GOP to add a new word to their vocabulary: the word ‘yes,'” said Colwell, a former speaker of the House. “You can’t just sit on your hands and be obstructionists.”

The spot, titled “Just Say Yes,” drew immediate fire from Republicans, including Davis himself, who at times during the film is pictured on a rocking horse and barricaded inside a log cabin plastered with signs reading, “No!”

“I guess they haven’t got much to do over there,” Davis said, denying a lack of effort to compromise on major issues during the past legislative sessions. “Unless it’s their own idea, [the Democrats] don’t like it.

While Davis was more dismissive of the spot than incensed by it, Colwell’s counterpart at the GOP offered a harsher assessment.

“With juvenile behavior such as this, it’s no wonder the people of Maine are disenchanted, disappointed and disgusted with the partisan rhetoric and personal attacks by State House Democrats,” said Mike Leavitt, executive director of the Maine Republican Party.

University of Maine political scientist Amy Fried called the spot “fundamentally harmless,” but questioned its premise of faulting a politician for not acquiescing to the majority’s will.

“There are times when one side has serious objections to the other’s approach, and it’s completely within the bounds of civil politics to oppose another leader’s proposal,” Fried said after viewing the spot. “[Davis] probably represents his constituents, and they deserve to have a voice, too.”

Humor has not been a large part of Maine politics over the years, said Fried, predicting the spot would have a negligible effect.

“It’s not so nasty [the Democrats] are going to feel a backlash, but I don’t think it’s going to motivate anyone to their positions, either,” she said.

“Just Say Yes” isn’t the first time Democrats have targeted Davis, arguably the GOP’s most public face in state politics. During the 2004 election, Democrats released fliers featuring a caricature of Davis with an ice pack on his head claiming the Republican suffered from “political amnesia.”