Charlotte Aldebron was 12 years old in 2002 when she wrote an essay about the American flag as part of a competition at Cunningham Middle School in Presque Isle.

Four years later, Cunningham is gone, merged with Skyway Middle to form Presque Isle Middle School. But the essay remains and continues to receive attention on the Internet, where it has achieved a certain level of political fame.

Last week, a contributor to the popular and influential liberal Web site, www.dailykos.com, featured the essay on its main page.

“The American flag stands for the fact that cloth can be very important. It is against the law to let the flag touch the ground or to leave the flag flying when the weather is bad. The flag has to be treated with respect. You can tell just how important this cloth is because when you compare it to people, it gets much better treatment. Nobody cares if a homeless person touches the ground. A homeless person can lie all over the ground all night long without anyone picking him up, folding him neatly and sheltering him from the rain.

“School children have to pledge loyalty to this piece of cloth every morning. No one has to pledge loyalty to justice and equality and human decency. No one has to promise that people will get a fair wage, or enough food to eat, or affordable medicine, or clean water, or air free of harmful chemicals. But we all have to promise to love a rectangle of red, white, and blue cloth.

“Betsy Ross would be quite surprised to see how successful her creation has become. But Thomas Jefferson would be disappointed to see how little of the flag’s real meaning remains.”

The essay made it’s way around the Web in 2002 and 2003 and re-emerged this week in relation to Congress’ attempt to pass a constitutional amendment that would ban flag burning.

Charlotte now lives in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. She’s 16 and in high school. Her mother, Jillian, is a lawyer and political activist. Reached last week, she was surprised that the essay had re-surfaced.

According to Jillian Aldebron, the essay, which was written just a few months after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was not well-received in Presque Isle.

“She was told by her teacher that she was unpatriotic,” Aldebron said. So Aldebron sent it to a progressive Web site. After the essay was published on www.commondreams.org, the family received thousands of e-mail responses from around the world, most of them positive, Aldebron said.

The Aldebrons left Maine two years ago.

Ballot, ballot on the wall

November’s ballot for the Legislature is still in flux.

Thirty-eight would-be lawmakers have dropped out of the hunt for a seat in the State House.

Joining Republicans Jay Taylor and Matthew McNally, who dropped out of state Senate races early last week, four other local GOP candidates have ended their quests for the state House of Representatives:

• Geoffrey Wright of Auburn, House District 69, against incumbent Democratic Rep. Deb Simpson, Auburn.

• Larry Poulin of Lewiston, House District 72, against incumbent Democratic Rep. William Walcott, Lewiston.

• Aubrey Knorr of Hallowell, House District 79, against Democrat Sharon Treat for the open seat of Republican state Rep. Earle McCormick, who is running for the state Senate.

• Robert Thomas of Phillips against incumbent Tom Saviello, I-Wilton, and Democrat Maxine Collins of Wilton.

In addition, Democrat Mark Gendron of Raymond has exited the race against incumbent Republican John Robinson, Raymond.

The parties have until July 24 to officially replace the candidates who dropped out by July 10.

Poll position

A SurveyUSA poll released last week contains good news for Republican state Sen. Chandler Woodcock of Farmington.

Woodcock, who’s among a large field challenging Democratic Gov. John Baldacci, was reported to have a small lead over the incumbent, 43 percent to 41 percent.

There’s some bad news in the poll, however, for anyone trying to gauge the early state of the race: The pollsters made it a head-to-head contest between Woodcock and Baldacci, with another category for “other.”

“Other,” this year, has a bunch of names and plenty of money.

In addition to Woodcock and Baldacci, Green Independent Pat LaMarche, her party’s vice presidential nominee in 2004, and independent Barbara Merrill, a one-term state representative from Appleton, are also in the race. Because they qualified for public financing of their campaigns – as did Woodcock – they will have a substantial amount of money to spend, possibly as much as $1.2 million each and at least $400,000.

But that’s not the complete list, either. Independent John Michael of Auburn is on the ballot and is still fighting for public financing for his campaign. Two others, David John Jones and Phillip NaPier are also in the race as independents.

The poll was conducted for WCSH-TV in Portland and the margin of error was 4 percent.