Montana's Republican candidate for senator, Mike Taylor, is suspending his campaign against Max Baucus, citing a sleazy, homophobic ad campaign from the Democratic National Committee, which had destroyed his credibility.
The interesting point is that Montana's filing deadline (like that in New Jersey) has passed. Are the Republicans planning on substituting another candidate?
Initial indications are that the GOP are going to take the high ground by running a write-in campaign instead (a write-in campaign has a 15 day deadline). The whole issue might be framed to embarass the Democrats, since Taylor was already down by 19 points before the unseemly ads began running. By refusing to do a bait-and-switch routine, the GOP can (and should) point out their belief in the rule of law, which has never been a Democratic Party strong suit.
It is interesting that deadlines are so very important to the Dems when discussing Bush's tardy filing with the SEC or the receipt date for overseas ballots in the 2000 campaign, but unreasonably restrictive when it comes to ballot deadlines and submission of vote certifications also from the 2000 election). Double standards, anyone?
UPDATE—October 12/12:45 PM—This Howard Kurtz article looks a lot like mine. I had not read his article until today. No plagiarism was intended on my part.
posted on October 11, 2002 06:19 PM
