While some thought Mitt Romney’s attack on Big Bird was vicious, the presidential candidate’s dismissal of PBS pales in comparison to the ongoing Republican assault of Senate candidate Colleen Lachowicz in Maine. Their ammunition? Her World of Warcraft habit. Lachowicz’s alter-ego, the orc rogue assasin Santiaga, has attained the impressive Level 85 distinction—the highest a WoW gamer can achieve—by efficiently stabbing other characters in the make-believe land of Azeroth with bone-bladed weapons.
Her Republican opponents, however, are now attempting to use this accomplishment against her. In a recent mailer, the Maine GOP included excerpts from gaming forums that Lachowicz has contributed to, arguing that she should not get “away with crude, vicious, and violent online comments.” They have also created a website, Colleen’s World, a cautionary mosaic that contains several of the 410 comments Lachowicz has apparently made about WoW on the liberal blog The Daily Kos. The site also features a pictures of her green-skinned assassin. One forum post is highlighted front and center: “So I’m a level 68 orc rogue girl. That means I stab things… a lot… Who would have thought that a peace lovin’, social worker and democrat would enjoy that?!”
In other posts, Lachowicz admits to “seriously slacking off at work” and, in a discussion of tax policy, says she wants to “go and hunt down Grover Norquist and drown HIM in my bathtub.”
Lachowicz does not appear perturbed by the attack thus far. On her own website, she says, “I think it’s weird that I’m being targeted for playing online games. Apparently I’m in good company since there are 183 million other Americans who also enjoy online games. What’s next? Will I be ostracized for playing Angry Birds or Words with Friends? If so, guilty as charged!”
