Every now and then, a politician does something stupid that doesn't actually matter, but makes us all feel better about ourselves. When Barack Obama accidentally said he had visited "fifty-seven states," he didn't actually mean it. He was tired and he misspoke.

But it's fun to make fun of that anyway, just like it's fun to make fun of a minor mistake made by Congressman Tim Walberg, which the Schauer campaign jumped on, while noting a previous mistake:

WALBERG SPELLS OWN NAME WRONG
Tim "A in English" Walberg continues to struggle with spelling

BATTLE CREEK—Earlier this year, Congressman Tim Walberg was recognized at the U.S. Capitol by U.S. English, Inc. and honored with an "A in English" award based on his votes for English-only legislation. Unfortunately, the press release announcing the news included an unfortunate spelling error, referring to the Congressman's "constitutents": [Link]

A recent fundraising letter sent out by the Walberg campaign contained another unfortunate spelling error – this time it was the Congressman's own name (see attached).

"Hey, we all make typos sometimes," said Schauer spokesman Zack Pohl. "It's no big deal – they could've spelled the Congressman's last name B-U-S-H and nobody would be able to tell the difference."

(Emphasis added.)

And before anyone says anything, it wasn't just some staffer mis-typing something. This was a handwritten fundraising appeal which was passed on to the Schauer campaign. Shown below, Walberg spells his name two different ways:


and


Now, the actual story here is the panicked, last-minute fundraising appeal for "anything you can send," but that's not nearly as much fun as the spelling error.

Then again, I have a tough to spell last name too, so I understand, Congressman Walberg.

Labels: 2008 Election, Fundraising, Mark Schauer, Tim Walberg