When politics becomes farce!

It is to laugh . . .

Sitting Republican senator, and former Republican candidate for the Senate in Alaska, Lisa Murkowski, is running as a write-in candidate for re-election after being defeated in that state's Republican primary election by Joe Miller. To do so, she has to educate her supporters to fill in an oval on the ballot paper, then write her name next to it. Spelling is obviously important.

It's therefore rather . . . er . . . unfortunate that her campaign put out a video advertisement that sort of shot themselves in the proverbial foot. According to Real Clear Politics:

The online ad that was posted on YouTube on Monday was originally titled, "Vote Lisa M-U-R-K-O-W-S-K-I Public Service Announcement," but the URL that flashed on the bottom of the screen at the end of the ad directed viewers to visit LisaMurkwski.com.

. . .

Once it realized the mistake, the Murkowski campaign pulled the ad, corrected the error, and reposted it under a different URL.

Before the spelling error began making the rounds on the blogosphere on Monday night, Murkowski spokesperson Steve Wackowski told RealClearPolitics that the ad was the work of volunteers, rather than paid professionals.

After realizing the mistake, Wackowski was quick to take the fall for the rest of the campaign team, noting that he approved the ad to go up on the web as he laughed off the error.

"Ironically enough, her name does not have to be spelled correctly," Wackowski said, referring to a comment by the director of Alaska's Division of Elections that she would only need to determine a voter's intent. "Honest mistake on our part, and we all had a good laugh about it."

There's more at the link.

To add insult to injury, Joe Miller's campaign reacted very quickly indeed - and very intelligently - when they saw the misspelt URL in the Murkowski campaign's advertisement. Some very bright spark on the Miller campaign immediately bought the rights to the misspelt URL, and promptly put up a Web site at that address supporting their candidate! Real Clear Politics again:

As of Monday night, that web site, which misspells Murkowski's name, featured a message disparaging Murkowski and promoting the candidacy of Fairbanks attorney Joe Miller, who defeated Murkowski in the Republican primary.

Full marks for swiftness of reaction to the Miller campaign - and a raspberry to the Murkowski campaign for handing their opponent, on a silver platter, such a cheeky free shot at them!



Peter