Kevin Raye says he was saddened this week. Why so glum, you contender for the Republican nomination to Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, concerned voters no doubt ask.

What caused Mr. Raye to descend into his very own slough of despond was the accusation by a rival GOP contender, Richard Campbell, that the Raye campaign had conducted a push poll. The push poll, as astute voters already know, is a despicable device in which what pretends to be a perfectly straightforward effort by a candidate to survey public opinion actually is an underhanded ploy to dish the dirt about opponents.

This poll, Mr. Campbell claimed, was pushy because it reminded voters he had declared personal bankruptcy back in 1993. And that another contender, state Rep. Stavros Mendros, had filed campaign finance reports late. And that yet another, former Bangor Mayor Timothy Woodcock, had served as a lawyer for the congressional Iran-Contra Committee that (to quote from the questionnaire) “investigated the Reagan-Bush administration.” (As in, the administration of the greatest Republican president since Lincoln and of the father of the current very popular president.)

The Raye campaign countered that the poll did not push; it merely tested voter response to facts. Besides, the poll also dumped on their man by making reference to his many years working in Washington, D.C., for Sen. Olympia Snowe. After all, who knows how Republican voters might react to learning that an aspirant to Congress served at the right hand of a Republican icon who is arguably the state’s most esteemed living political figure?

And if that didn’t settle the matter, a Bates political science professor who supports the Bates graduate in question said it wasn’t a push poll. Plus, the head of the Maine Republican Party said Republicans don’t do push polls. So there.

The other candidates can only wait and wonder how this test of voter response to facts – vital facts, indeed, in a district suffering from economic decline and consequent population loss that may lead to its extinction after the 2010 Census – turned out, but it does seemed to have assured Team Raye that the Snowe connection is good to go. This from the campaign Web site: “Maine people like my message that I will be ‘Ready on Day One’ to fight for Maine. My 17 years of experience working for Maine with Senator Olympia Snowe, both here and in Washington, provided me with a unique opportunity…” and so on. Note how he even capitalized Washington. No fear.

A quick romp through the Raye for Congress Web site did, however, reveal something about which the other candidates might want to test voter response. On the Maine Republican Party page, where links to the various campaigns are found, there is a photo of Kevin Raye taken at last summer’s Potato Blossom Festival in Fort Fairfield. The candidate is posing in front of one of those large metal buildings so popular in agricultural settings, he’s wearing a yellow shirt and squinting into the sun, his right arm raised in cheerful greeting. On the Raye for Congress site, there’s the same photo – same shirt, same squint, same raised arm, all is identical – only this time he’s posing in front of a lake with a mountain in the distance.

This raises myriad questions. Was Kevin Raye actually in Fort Fairfield last summer, or was that photo taken at the Potomac Potato Blossom Festival? If this is a case of doctored photos, how do we know that lake and mountain aren’t manipulated images of the Tidal Basin and the Bureau of Printing and Engraving? If the photos are real – two locations, one frozen pose – how do Maine people feel about the possibility that Sen. Snowe had at her right hand for 17 years a mannequin? A poll is definitely in order.

In the interest of fairness, and because the Web site is the new window to the soul (another cause for sadness), I checked out the other candidates’ on-line presences for poll-worthy material. Starting, because he’s the cause of all this sadness, with Richard Campbell.

The candidate, a former state legislator, makes no mention of the financial distress he suffered nearly a decade ago, but there is evidence he’s got this free-enterprise thing figured out. Like most candidates, he asks for money. Like a true Republican, he gives you something in return – clothing. Unlike other candidates who employ this fund-raising device, the Campbell for Congress line of apparel isn’t cheap gimme stuff, but quality merchandise at full retail prices. Poll question: If he can sell T-shirts with his name on them for $20 a pop, could Richard Campbell actually be Tommy Hilfiger in disguise?

The Mendros site is silent on his late finance reports, but then it’s also silent on his more recent lateness – two years’ worth – in registering his car. No doubt he’ll get around to addressing these issues in good time.

Of more immediate concern is the logo used on his cut-rate merchandise. It’s a cartoonish drawing of a gigantic candidate holding the Capitol upside down, shaking terrorized people – or maybe they’re terrorized special interests – into a trash can. Poll question: Should Stavros Mendros run for Congress or star in the next Godzilla movie?

The Woodcock site is as serious and detail-laden as those who know this former federal prosecutor and aide to former Sen. William Cohen would expect. It seems, at first glance, to be nothing but extended observations on issues and descriptions of proposals, the sort of dreary stuff that hardly makes for good campaigns, much less surveys of public opinion. Look closely, though, and a sinister possibility arises.

There’s a photo of Mr. Woodcock and Sen. Cohen together, both smiling broadly. Sen. Cohen is not a tall man, yet he inexplicably appears in this shot to be Mr. Woodcock’s equal. Poll question: Is this because Sen. Cohen is standing on Ollie North’s investigation-battered carcass? To not test public response on such matters as these would be, like the candidate says, saddening.

Bruce Kyle is the assistant editorial page editor for the Bangor Daily News.