How Not To Respond
Businessman Tim D'Annunzio (R) is serious about his bid against Rep. Larry Kissell (D-NC), but he clearly needs to work on his discipline.
D'Annunzio has already raised $621K, thanks to a $250K loan he gave himself. And he's set to raise more at a fundraiser Thursday in Fayetteville, where donors who give $25 can shoot submachine guns.
The genre isn't uncommon -- the NH GOP did something similar a few years back -- and neither are the derogatory comments. Posters at the Charlotte Observer used the anonymous comments section to, pardon the expression, take shots at D'Annunzio, calling him the kinds of names one might expect in anonymous blog postings.
But instead of ignoring the posters, D'Annunzio got a little peeved and wrote back:
"Just to clear things up, not that it will matter to the racist, typical red necked [sic] hicks that have now replaced 'N' word with their new bigoted hate, Jim's is providing the 'Machine Guns' and I have organized the 'Social'. And yes they are real machine guns. Hiding behind these web sites as 'anonymous' is the same as hiding under a the white hood, COWARDS. You wouldn't dare say these things to my face, but I wouldn't have any trouble telling you this same thing to yours, if you dared," D'Annunzio wrote about 10 hours after Observer reporter Jim Merrill's blog post originally went up.
Things to remember when running a campaign: Never refer to the "N word," never refer to the Klan and don't bother reading comments about your campaign if you can't handle a few nuts who will never like you.
I think he's actually donated closer to $500K to his own campaign... but who's counting.