Team Tark Blasted Over Negative Email
filed in Campaign News, Campaign Strategy on Dec.13, 2009
Big dust-up on the campaign trail: Team Tark sent out a fundraising email about Sue Lowden taken from a column written by Human Events political editor John Gizzi. Unfortunately, the work was not credited to Gizzi, but reportedly appeared under a Human Events banner.
Jon Ralston noticed and wrote it up in his blog. Tarkanian’s campaign manager, Jamie Fisfis, tried to spin the story to insulate the candidate from the fundraising email. Ralston wrote that up, too.
Chuck Muth points out an additional problem: John Gizzi had recently re-examined his criticisms of Lowden and come up with a better opinion of her. This more recent column was reprinted at Nevada News & Views on December 6. But Team Tark continued to use the earlier column for their fundraising email. Fisfis was also intemperate in his response to Muth.
What can we learn from this incident?
1. The fastest exit from something embarrassing is to admit the “error” and move along.
2. There are some things campaign managers shouldn’t say to reporters.
