Last week, the popular conservative blog Red State peeked into our corner of the world, and found a candidate running here in the Third District whom they felt their readers should consider as "one of" themselves.
Except that they got the name wrong. Instead of Robin Smith, the article referred to "Robin Jones" several times. (It has since been corrected in the post content, though there is still a tag for the incorrect name.) Had this been done closer to the election, it would have been a more serious mistake, as it would likely have caused confusion among voters when they glanced at the ballot. One cannot go by first names only. We were supposed to have two Brents in the opposite primary for this very election, after all. (More on that later.)
Across the aisle, Democratic candidate Paula Flowers has a more difficult problem to solve. Fire up your time machine for a minute and travel back to the early 1990s. What do the words "Democrat," "Paula," and "Flowers" bring to mind? (Don't forget to inhale.)
Yes, that's right: not one, but two completely different women with whom then-Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton was linked in media-intensive scandals. Gennifer Flowers was one, and Paula Jones was another. (There were more, as I'm sure you recall.)
This plays out in today's search engine-optimized world like so: Internet searches for "Paula Flowers" bring back these stories, as Ilissa Gold pointed out at her blog (see second comment). You can bet that Paula Flowers does not want to be confused with Paula Jones, nor with Gennifer Flowers.
Smith's campaign has an arguably easier task (requesting that the Red State site correct the last name) than does Flowers' (trying to suppress embarrassing search results that have nothing to do with her or her campaign). For the record, Flowers' results on Google.com have improved dramatically since I first noticed the phenomenon a few months ago, though—oops—this post itself could trigger a small setback.
Your best bet is to stay with TN03. We promise to get the names right most of the time.
Joe Lance
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