Mock talking-head Stephen Colbert has proven he’ll put his SuperPAC funding to work promoting his particular brand of sarcasm by creating and airing “campaign ads” that essentially play jester to the court of American politics. The Wall Street Journal reports:
The comic, who portrays a mock political talk host on his Comedy Central show, produced two television commercials through his PAC, laden with images of corn and farms, asking for the “Parry” vote. “That’s ‘Parry’ with an ‘a’ for America, an ‘a’ for Iowa,” one ad says.
On his show Thursday, he encouraged the misspelled vote “because there’s no ‘e’ in ‘team.'”
Colbert bought commercial time to run his ads on the NBC and CBS affiliates in Des Moines. But the ABC affiliate, WOI-DT, rejected the ads. In an email sent to Colbert, the station said the ads would confuse voters.
Confusion is, apparently, the point. The truth remains that if clean election legislation existed in Iowa, this ad could trigger more money for the real Rick Perry in matching contributions (and arguably for all other candidates as well). But Colbert may have forgotten that. A very real question for him to consider if he’s uninterested in the details of the actual legislation, and this is assuming his intentions are to satirize and make a revelatory point about politics in this country today, will his attempt to bring enlightnement to us all backfire? Rick Hasen, a law professor and administrator of the Election Law Blog, thinks it might.
Anyway, the Iowa GOP, which runs the Ames Straw Poll, didn’t seem especially amused. The spokesman told me that write-in votes would be counted according to Iowa election code, including “voter intent.” But what’s the intent of a vote for Rick Parry with an A?
Rick Hasen: Some voters might be intending to vote for Rick Perry, and not know how to spell Perry and might spell it with an A. Some voters might be intending to cast a Colbert protest vote.
Rick Hasen is a law professor at U.C. Irvine.
Hasen: I think it’s completely ambiguous, and that is why if this were a real election, I’d find Colbert’s behavior very troubling.
Hasen says it’s an example of the mischief a Colbert Super PAC could cause in the election — in ways intended and unintended.
Hasen: It really is a little bit Colbert playing with fire.
Maybe funny fire, but still fire.
