Fear-Mongering and Loathing: Senator Denounces Satire

A radio ad drew the ire of Alaska’s senior senator last week. The ad, in support of Democratic Senate candidate Tony Knowles, mocked Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, who supports GOP incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski.

The ad, created by Alaska lobbyist Bill Bobrick, says: “Ted Stevens will die -- he’ll die, I tell you -- and then we’ll be stuck with [Stevens’ son] Ben Stevens, and then [Gov.] Frank Murkowski will have to adopt him and appoint him to the U.S. Senate.”

The line was a jab at Sen. Murkowski, who was appointed to the seat in 2002 by her father, Frank H. Murkowski, after he was elected governor and left his post in the Senate.

The Knowles campaign was not aware of the ad, a campaign spokesman said, and Knowles has asked Bobrick to pull it.

Stevens labeled the ad “beyond the pale of decency” last week. Bobrick defended it, telling the Anchorage Daily News that the ad was intended to lampoon political fear-mongering.

The spot also pokes fun at Democrats, describing “a world where if people vote for Knowles, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton [D-N.Y.] will send bees to sting Alaskans in their ‘nether regions’ and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy [D-Mass.] will take people’s guns and enslave their children to liberals.”

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Of Mole and Mary

At a rally in an airplane hangar in Montoursville, Pa., on Friday, Mary Cheney had just left the stage where her father, Vice President Dick Cheney, was speaking when a mole scurried out, causing a stir at the front of the audience. As the Secret Service stood by, Cheney’s daughter took her brother-in-law’s hat, scooped up the mole and carried it safely to freedom on a grassy area behind Air Force Two.

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Independent Living

One of Sen. Russell D. Feingold’s (D-Wis.) three challengers is an anomaly in the world of big-money politics -- he once was homeless.

The independent candidate, Eugene Hem, 71, listed the Green Bay, Wis., Greyhound bus depot as his address when he filed to get on the state ballot.

He has an apartment in Appleton now, but had no home when he was traveling the state by bus full time to gather the 2,100 signatures needed for nomination. Hem once told Appleton police officers he lived in “Homeless, Wis.”

Hem, a retired Milwaukee science teacher, ran for Senate four years ago and won nearly 10,000 of 2.5 million votes.

“To me, that’s a lot,” Hem told Associated Press. “Is that a sign, an omen that the people want a change?”

Also opposing Feingold are Republican businessman Tim Michels and Libertarian Arif Khan.

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Voter’s Last Wish

Welch Flippin wanted to vote. So badly, in fact, that the dying Texas man’s last act was to cast a ballot.

Suffering from kidney failure, Flippin, 85, asked his son to bring him a ballot. The Lynn County clerk visited the Flippin home herself in Tahoka, a town of 2,000, and delivered a ballot to the ailing man.

Flippin’s son, Perry, asked his father, a Democrat, whom he wanted to support.

“You like Kerry and Edwards?” retired newspaper editor Perry Flippin asked his father, he recounted in his column in the San Angelo Standard-Times.

“Naw,” Welch Flippin replied.

“Bush and Cheney?”

“Naw.”

Instead, Flippin cast a vote for U.S. Rep. Charles W. Stenholm, a 13-term Democrat.

He fell asleep, and passed away Oct. 20, the next day.

“I think he knew exactly what he was doing, and I was privileged to cast that last ballot,” Flippin’s son told Associated Press. “I’m surprised that he would be thinking about that on his deathbed, but he thought his vote was important.”

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Who’s Counting?

1,969: Number of statistically possible electoral college ties, as determined by a political science professor and a mathematics and statistics professor at Youngstown State University in Ohio, using 17 swing states and 131,072 combinations.

49: Number of states visited by Vice President Dick Cheney on the campaign trail, including Hawaii today.

52%: Share of people who would rather have dinner with Sen. John F. Kerry than with President Bush, according to an online survey this month of 4,900 people by restaurant guide Zagat Survey. Bush received 48%.

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Duly Quoted

“The race is incredibly tight, and everyone says it’s going to come down to a few undecided voters -- or as I like to call them, the Supreme Court.” -- Actor Jason Alexander on CBS’ “Late Late Show” last week.

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Compiled from staff, Web and wire reports by Times staff researcher Susannah Rosenblatt.