You’d have to pause and think that this bit of news is an April Fool’s joke — except it comes via AP which doesn’t put out fake stories on April Fool’s day:
First came news that the Republican National Committee paid $1,946 for a gathering at a sex-themed Hollywood club, which a group of young Republicans had visited without RNC approval. The money is to be paid back.
Now it turns out the RNC inadvertently listed a phone-sex number on a fundraising letter sent to potential donors. People who tried to call the committee were instead offered “live, one-on-one talk with a nasty girl” for $2.99 a minute.
According to the AP report, this has been confirmed and it turns out it was a typo.
This of course will provide late night comedians’ writers with lots of fun prospects for monologues. Here are a few quick jokes that come to mind:
*People who tried to call the committee were instead offered “live, one-on-one talk with a nasty girl”? So they started forwarding calls to Ann Coulter? (THIS VERSION FOR DEMOCRATIC AUDIENCE)
*People who tried to call the committee were instead offered “live, one-on-one talk with a nasty girl”: So they started forwarding calls to Nancy Pelosi? (THIS VERSION FOR REPUBLICAN AUDIENCE).
*Tiger Woods has already donated $50,000.
*Our sources tell us another typo forwarded callers to an escort service but that wasn’t a typo. It went to the main switchboard of Congress.
*To the RNC: there are elections in November. FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS…
*Lots of 18 year old male voters are now calling to donate.
FOOTNOTE: It IS April 1 but it’s hard to believe the AP would run a fake post aimed at a political party’s woes in this tempestuous climate. If it does, we’ll do up a follow up post.
UPDATE: The AP picked this up from The Politico. Here’s the latter part of the Politico article:
A spokesman for the RNC declined to say how many copies of the census-style mailer were sent out.
“The number in question was a typographical error by a vendor used on this particular mailer — using 1-800 instead of 202,” said RNC Communications Director Doug Heye.
Heye e-mailed different direct-mail pieces that included the correct RNC phone number, writing: “This is an isolated incident and will not be repeated in the future.”
He said the vendor responsible for the mistake “will not be used for the foreseeable future.”
(That’ll cut down to repeated calls to that number…)
UPDATE II: GO HERE to listen to what callers got when they called the number. (WARNING: Adult content).
UPDATE III: Even though this can’t be blamed on Michael Steele or, apparently, even on the RNC, this will add to the ongoing media narrative of the RNC as a place that does not have its act together and can’t be called “Bush league” since the two George Bushes were more professional than that. If you had to place bets now, a good bet would be that Steele won’t be around for a second term unless the GOP wins big in November. And even then.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.