Invaluable reader CB flags a doozy in the annals of GOP congressional candidates doing increasingly desperate things to muscle ahead: California Republican candidate Zane Starkewolf's robocall tying his Democratic opponent to George Bush -- sexily. Take a listen; it's worth it.
Like the fellow at the top of the Republican ticket, Starkewolf seems uncertain of which tack to take: back off of his outlandish stunt, or double down on it? He stopped using it in calls, but then posted it -- and the news segment on it featuring people saying "It sounds like sex" -- to his campaign's YouTube page. On his campaign website, Starkewolf boasts:
I acknowledge that the idea behind the ad, and indeed the execution of the call, was not the safe route to take. And if my run for office was simply for personal gain, I would not have taken a risk. But the content and the facts within the message were there and need to be discussed.
Indeed, if every discussion of political content and facts took this form, I bet we'd have a much higher level of political literacy.
P.S. Starkewolf's campaign appears dead in the water, but I can't resist hoping he wins and Michele Bachmann loses to Elwyn Tinklenberg. Think of the possibilities for crazy, science-fiction-novel-sounding bipartisan intiatives! The "Elwyn Tinklenberg-Zane Starkewolf Energy Plan," etc.
--Eve Fairbanks