I Approve This Message, But Don’t Hold Me To It

“I’m Steve Golden, and I approve this message.”

You hear this phrase near constantly around election season.  On the radio.  On the television.  It should be rather self-explanatory what this means.  It means that I, the candidate, the individual whose name is at the top of the ticket, has at least theoretically seen the contents of this advertisement, and that I agree with what it says.  It means that I take full responsibility for the content– good or bad– and that I will stand by it.

Senator Dean Heller apparently thinks it’s just some sort of cutesy catchphrase like “That’s hot,” or “Wokka Wokka.”

In the competitive Nevada Senate election, an ad ran against Democrat Shelley Berkeley, and was produced by the campaign of Dean Heller.  What phrase ended the ad?  “I’m Dean Heller, and I approve this message.”  But according to Heller, he’s not running those ads “[t]he campaign is.  If you have any questions or comments it’d probably be better if you directed those towards the campaign. Just talk to the campaign…”

So there’s either one of two things going on here.  Either Heller is too wimpy to own up to the fact that he had a hand in running the ad, or he just allows his name to be plastered over any crap, and has no control over even his own campaign.  In either scenario, Dean Heller is neither acting Senatorial nor rational.

I’m Steve Golden, and I approved this blog post.