For every dollar the opposition has raised, they've attracted less than a dime.

Poll numbers that once showed them comfortably on top have suddenly (and predictably) started to tank.

And alas, the statewide referendum on Maine's new and (not so) improved Taxpayer Bill of Rights is now less than a week away.

All of which can mean only one thing for the never-say-die folks at TABOR NOW.

It's temper-tantrum time.

"I don't know how much more of a smoking gun you need!" replied an agitated David Crocker, chairman of TABOR NOW, when asked Tuesday for solid evidence – as in the stuff courts use to convict people – that government officials at the state and local levels are running roughshod over the law in their quest to defeat Question 4 on Tuesday's ballot.

Specifically, TABOR NOW has gone into hissy-fit mode over what it claims are two brazen deployments of public resources – one by the city of South Portland and the other by leaders of the Maine Legislature – to drive a stake through the so-called TABOR II initiative.

In South Portland, officials recently inserted an informational flier along with property tax bills, informing residents that the City Council has voted to oppose both Question 4 and Question 2 (the ill-conceived proposal to cut some, but not all, excise taxes).

The flier goes on to display the wording of each question, along with a pair of bullet items under each.

TABOR II, it notes, "is a revised version of TABOR I, which Maine voters defeated in 2006."

Also, the flier correctly advises, "TABOR II mandates a community-wide referendum for approving the municipal annual budget in certain circumstances."

Not exactly inflammatory stuff, to be sure. Not only is everything on the flier already public record, but nowhere does it tell South Portland taxpayers how they should vote on either question.

So what's TABOR NOW's beef?

"Come on," said Crocker. "You don't find it even a little bit unsubtle?"

His point: The flier doesn't actually have to tell people how to vote (which would be illegal) to tell them (wink, wink) how to vote. By sharing the same envelope with a property-tax bill, Crocker said, the flier has coercion written all over it.

In other words, hard evidence be damned. If TABOR NOW sees the fliers as yet another example of the government bogeymen sticking it to John Q. Taxpayer, then it simply must be true.

"I really think you're missing the larger issue here," said Crocker.

Hmmm and here I thought I was looking for proof that rises to a higher level than "unsubtle."

TABOR NOW's complaint against House Speaker Hannah Pingree, Senate President Elizabeth Mitchell and their legion of legislative staffers is even more byzantine.

It focuses on a meeting that Pingree and Mitchell held on Aug. 12 in the speaker's office with business representatives to discuss the effect of TABOR II, primarily on the road construction industry.

TABOR NOW's allegation: An exhaustive review of e-mails the group obtained through a Freedom of Access request provides proof positive that the meeting was nothing more than a slow-motion shakedown.

The message to those visiting the State House, claims TABOR NOW, was to pay now with anti-TABOR II donations in order to play later with lucrative state road contracts.

Except there's no proof.

For starters, in a lengthy expose on its Web site (www.tabornow.com), TABOR NOW offers not one example of state officials at any level mentioning donations to anyone.

And in a statement released Monday, Attorney General Janet Mills turned down TABOR NOW's request for a criminal investigation of the meeting because "there is no indication, either in the materials provided or in follow-up interviews, that any laws were broken...