Maine political activist Andrew Ian Dodge dies at age 46

A Colby College graduate, Dodge announced in June that he had incurable cancer.

Andrew Ian Dodge knew months ago that his life would soon be coming to end, so he composed a final statement, which was posted by his wife to his website Sunday morning.

The former Libertarian candidate for the U.S. Senate and Maine tea party activist wrote about his love for music, politics and writing – and his deep affection of his wife, Kim – in his farewell message.

Dodge, 46, died Friday morning at his home in Harpswell, where he was being cared for by his wife, whom he married in 2007, and his mother, Elizabeth.

His mother said Dodge died of an incurable form of colon cancer.

“If you are reading this I will have succumbed to the forces of cancers that have been ravaging my body for the last little while. The last fight betwixt my body with the help of cancer treatment and cancer has not gone according to plan. The hordes of cancer plague entities have felled their host on the battlefield of life,” Dodge wrote.

Dodge graduated from Colby College in Waterville and obtained a postgraduate degree in British politics from Hull University in the United Kingdom. He said he met Kim at a London club in 2005.

“She has stuck by with love, affection and care all the way through,” Dodge wrote in his final statement.

“Ultimately, everything in my life for good or ill led me to meet this wonderful woman, therefore I can have no regrets. She is of great talent, compassion, love and fortitude.”

Dodge, a tea party activist and freelance writer, became a candidate for the Senate in 2012 after Sen. Olympia Snowe announced she would not seek re-election.

Independent Angus King defeated Dodge, Democrat Cynthia Dill and Republican Charlie Summers in the November election that year.

Dodge was the lowest vote getter in the Senate election, receiving 5,624 votes, or 0.8 percent of the votes. King received 370,580 votes, or 51.1 percent.

“I’m very sorry to hear he died,” said Jack Wibby, chairman of the Cumberland County Tea Party Patriots. Wibby said he did not know Dodge very well, adding, “He was way too young to lose his life.”

Elizabeth Dodge described her son Sunday night as a well-rounded individual who enjoyed music, especially heavy metal music, writing novels and stories, and composing political columns for his local newspaper, the Brunswick Times Record.

“It was a wonderful (political) column because he wrote what he thought. His political opinion never changed, even as he aged,” Elizabeth Dodge said. “He didn’t write to please anyone.”

“He was also a prolific reviewer of music,” his mother said. He started writing music reviews for Blogcritics.com about 20 years ago under the alias Marty Dodge.

Dodge’s mother said she has been struck by the outpouring of sympathy after friends and others learned that her son had passed away.

Raheem Kassam, a writer for Breitbart.com, a conservative news and opinion website in London, wrote a column Sunday about the death of Dodge, whom he describes as his friend.

“He was an incredible character and someone I feel lucky to have been able to call a co-conspirator and brother. We worked together on a number of projects, and he was supportive of a number of different websites I founded and edited,” Kassam wrote.

Kassam mentioned Harpswell as his friend’s hometown, adding, “Residents of the 5,000-strong town will no doubt have known and loved him dearly.”

“There was no way one could resist his charm, and he often drew me into political discussions in the middle of my work day over Facebook. I could rarely resist having a gossip with him,” Kassam said.

Kassam said Dodge wrote for the Huffington Post, Trending Central, the Canada Free Press, and the Washington Examiner. He said his friend was also a huge fan of “Baroness Thatcher” and President Ronald Reagan.

Dodge had known his health was getting worse and in June posted a tweet on his website that said, “If you are wondering why I have been a bit flaky and inconsistent in the last few months … There is a reason: I have incurable cancer. We are trying to figure out the best course of action regarding chemo and treatment. Kim Benson, my beloved wife, has been a rock throughout. We shall fight this with all our might.”


http://www.pressherald.com/2014/08/04/maine-political-activist-andrew-ian-dodge-dies-at-age-46/