You probably didn’t notice, but Les Otten has changed treasurers for his campaign.  With no announcement, and no fanfare, William Ryan – a heavy hitter Maine businessman who serves as Chairman of TD Banknorth Inc., has been quietly replaced by Bruce Chalmers.

When Otten’s campaign was originally announced, Bill Ryan was listed as his Treasurer.  This is confirmed by news reports, as well as Otten’s own website.  Obviously given Ryan’s standing in Maine and the business community, this was a huge bonus for Otten’s campaign.

But, on October 22nd, Otten’s Ethics Commission filing was amended, and in it we see that Ryan is no longer the Treasurer – Bruce Chalmers, the co-owner and President of the Chalmers Realty Group:

If you go to LesOtten.com you will also notice Chalmers is listed as the Treasurer at the bottom.

No disrespect to Mr. Chalmers, I am sure he will be a fine Treasurer for the Otten campaign and is a hell of a guy – but why is the Otten campaign already changing financial horses in midstream?

Why is such a titanic coup for the Otten campaign like Ryan gone?

I can’t for the life of me imagine that he was fired, which leads to one other possibility – he left on his own accord.

Now, to be fair to Mr. Otten, it is entirely possible Ryan left because he simply did not have the time or ability to perform Treasurer duties anymore.  This would seem odd to me, as I have to imagine Ryan knew what he was signing up for – but it is a possibility none the less.

Perhaps it is possible that Ryan agreed to help Otten “get the ball rolling” during the his exploratory committee phase, but then would step back during the formal campaign.  A possibility, but one I personally haven’t really seen done before.  Consistency is important in a campaign, and you tend to want the same people in place the entire time if they are doing a good job.

Which leaves us with one additional possibility – Ryan left the campaign.

The updated ethics filing came just a few days after Otten announced his formal run for the Blaine House.  Was Ryan unhappy with the direction of the campaign?  Did he object to anything going on within the campaign?  Did he lose faith in the candidate just as the campaign was officially kicking off?

Still, no matter the reason, flipping through high level campaign officials like this isn’t a good thing.

We just don’t know at this point why Ryan left, and I do want to be careful to not draw too many conclusions from circumstantial evidence like this.  I put in a request for comment with the Otten campaign, and have yet to hear back from them as of the time this article was published.

UPDATE: I received the following from Les Otten’s campaign manager, Edie Smith:

As I’m sure you know, Bill Ryan is retiring from TD Bank after a long and wonderful career there.  Bill felt with his retirement, he would step back from being the day to day “official” Treasurer of the Otten Jobs for Maine campaign, while continuing to play an active role on our Team.

Les and all of us on the campaign are very appreciative of Bill’s support.  We are also very pleased that Bruce Chalmers of Bridgton, a long time Les Otten supporter and a life long Maine Republican, has agreed to take on the responsibilities of Treasurer.  With Bill Ryan’s continued support and Bruce Chalmer’s work as our Treasurer, we have two great Mainers at the helm!

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