Whiskey and car keys for Smack campaign

"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." - P.J. O'Rourke

To anyone who has worked with elected officials, the truth of P.J. O'Rourke's statement is undeniable. Fortunately for journalists, the "whiskey and car keys" analogy now carries over to political campaigns thanks to the First Amendment.

Just about anyone can run for office. From the success of the "steak knife" tag we also see that even when lacking any semblance of common sense, just about anyone can serve.

And we can call them on it when they do.

The newest additions to the "sub 100" I.Q. club are GOP congressional candidate James Smack, his "campaign manager" Wayne Terhune, and his "communications director" Jennifer Terhune.

No idea what Jennifer does, but Wayne Terhune is really a make-believe campaign manager who is a dentist by trade. So far, all e-mails from the campaign have come from an e-mail domain of "usekjvonly.com." Typing in the address takes you to a website that says front and center that "The King James Version Bible is the only true Word of God. If you want to get to Heaven, you must read it every day and do what it says."

I won't even get into the obvious reasons that this is probably not the best place to use when sending out official campaign e-mail. I think the more obvious flaw is that Dr. and Ms. Terhune seemingly haven't discovered gmail yet.

It's free. It's hip. You can send really big files. And you don't lose votes for telling people that they're going to hell.

So, Wally, you ask, what did the latest press release actually say?

VICTORY '08 OFFICIAL HANGS UP ON SMACK CAMPAIGN

Really, I'm not kidding. They issued a press release because someone hung up on them. Perhaps next they will issue a press release telling us what size band-aid they use next time Mr. Smack gets a boo-boo on his knee.

I know that free speech is protected, and I know that these guys have a right to run for office, pretend they're for real, and issue grown-up press releases like the big shots. I could take the high road and just ignore this for a few more days until we see the Smack campaign get smacked at the polls on Tuesday.

Since I did not ignore this press release, I will give coverage to their issue. The gripe in the press release is that the combined GOP campaign operation that is called "Victory '08" hasn't warmed up to the idea of letting someone who is challenging an incumbent use their phone banks to campaign against said incumbent.

And it's also about someone hanging up on them.

There is no mention that Victory '08 is letting the incumbent use the phones and not the challenger. No unfair advantage, rules broken, campaign laws broken, nothing like that. They just were mean and hung up the phone.

If I were a guessing man, and if I wrote a guessing column, I would guess this: Victory '08 doesn't want this more fringe element anywhere near their offices. They've set up rules that are fair and legal, but effectively make it too costly or inconvenient for that fringe campaign to utilize their infrastructure. You could say that they are sending a message back that the Smack campaign is not very welcome at the Victory '08 offices.

What do you do when the mainstream bulk of the party tells you that you should look elsewhere? If you've got the brilliant strategic minds of Terhune & Terhune, you run out and tell the press that you are the pariah of the GOP. It must be that reverse psychology idea again.

One of our politiocs said in summary that "If he's whining about getting hung up on now, there's no way he's ready for Washington, DC. Not even as a doorman."

Somehow I'm guessing that I was just removed from the Smack campaign press release distribution list. And five days early. Shucks.