AUGUSTA — It was only a few years ago that if you wanted to record something, you needed a video camera or a tape recorder. Now that just about anyone with a cellphone has those capabilities, public figures ranging from police officers to politicians are learning that they have to treat every utterance as if it could become a headline.

Political experts say that could change the face of politics in Maine, and not for the better.

On Tuesday, Democratic Sen. Geoffrey Gratwick of Bangor found himself the subject of a recording made while he was campaigning door-to-door in his district talking to voters. Circulated by the Maine Republican Party, the recording has Gratwick voicing support for independent gubernatorial candidate Eliot Cutler and questioning the intelligence of Democratic nominee Mike Michaud.

It’s clear that Gratwick was unaware that he was being recorded. He and other Democrats said Tuesday that his comments were taken out of context and that the rest of the recording would show Gratwick voicing support for Michaud. The GOP on Tuesday refused to release the unedited recording because, according to spokesman David Sorensen, it would reveal the identity of the person who recorded it.

For Michaud, Gratwick and Cutler, the effects of the recording — for good or bad — are done. The question — in an era when citizen recordings of everything from police brutality to natural disasters to formerly private self-images have become ubiquitous — is whether the idea that any candidate could be recorded at any time will change how people seeking to serve in Maine’s citizen Legislature or in higher office conduct themselves on the campaign trail.

“Voters care more about the substance than the process,” said Sorensen. “It seems like people don’t care about things like the nitty gritty of what the Democrats think of Republicans recording someone. It’s more about the substance of the recording.”

The recording of politicians happens under a variety of circumstances, from paid trackers following candidates to public events — which is a reality for each of Maine’s three gubernatorial candidates — to secret recordings at private fundraisers.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign suffered a serious and possibly fatal blow in 2012 when his infamous “47 percent” comment made national news, and Republican Gov. Paul LePage has been at the center of clandestine recordings in which he said, among other things, the state budget surplus was larger than the Legislature knew and that he declared a state of emergency in 2013 in order to put pressure on state workers’ labor unions.

Those incidents put a damper on what LePage and other political figures say in public — LePage famously keeps a roll of duct tape on his desk to remind him to curb his comments — even when there are no reporters in the room. But a recording of a candidate campaigning door to door is something many political observers had never seen in Maine — until Tuesday.

“I can’t think of an instance where I’ve heard of this happening, though I suppose it was going to happen sooner or later,” said Jim Melcher, a political science professor at the University of Maine at Farmington. “The more things get recorded, the less candid the candidates are going to be. It’s going to change the way candidates talk if they’re always afraid they’re going to be recorded and to me, that’s more of the issue here.”

Maine Democratic Party Chairman Ben Grant said Tuesday that he believes virtually any recording of a candidate or public official operating in his or her official capacity is OK for public consumption — as long as recordings are released in their unedited entirety.

“I want candidates to speak the truth and what’s on their minds,” said Grant. “Whether you know you’re being recorded or not, that shouldn’t change anything. … Everyone has the ability to record audio and video these days. Everyone’s a potential tracker out there.”

Emily Shaw, a former political scientist professor at Thomas College in Waterville, is a state and local policy program director for the Washington D.C.-based Sunlight Foundation, whose mission is making government accountable and transparent.

“The consequence of private individuals having this enhanced ability to self-publish is that it really does make the whole campaign potentially fully public,” said Shaw. “This is changing the dynamics of how people in campaigns can communicate.”

Mark Brewer, a University of Maine political science professor, agreed.

“You would assume at some point that politicians and other public figures are going to learn that in today’s technological age, that virtually anything you do or say has the possibility of showing up on YouTube,” said Brewer. “I’m sure that this example will be pointed out for quite some time. Whether or not it’s going to cause voters to answer their doors with their cellphones ready and recording is another question.”

Republican Cary Weston of Bangor, who is Gratwick’s opponent for the District 9 Senate seat, said he in a way sympathizes with Gratwick because the campaign should be about issues important to voters, not the messaging of outside groups.

In 2012, the Bangor-area Senate seat won by Gratwick became the most expensive Senate contest in Maine history, drawing more than $450,000 in spending from outside groups that by law weren’t allowed to coordinate with the campaigns. This year’s contest also is seen as pivotal for control of the Senate in the next Legislature.

“It’s sad and unfortunate that this is what drives the dialogue in the elections rather than what matters and the people who are running,” said Weston. “The appearance from the outside is that all of this is coordinated by the candidates. … It’s very difficult for someone not paying attention to politics 24/7 to separate candidates from actions like this. It really stains the effort that candidates put into their campaigns.”

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