In Nevada, GOP candidate raises a squawk
Senate candidate Sue Lowden has a problem: Chickens are really funny.
Lowden also has all the makings of someone who could topple Democratic Sen. Harry Reid. A casino executive, the Republican can tout herself as a job creator during a recession.
She’s also got the looks and smooth delivery of a former beauty queen — Miss New Jersey 1973 — and a Las Vegas TV anchorwoman. Picture her next to the soft-spoken and less than charismatic Reid, and Sarah Palin comparisons are inevitable.
But Lowden can’t go anywhere these days without someone squawking about chickens. After she seemingly advocated “bartering” for medical care this month, Jay Leno smelled a punch line.
“That’s a great idea,” the late-night talk show host said. “But what if your doctor’s not Amish, OK? What do you do then?”
Instead of backing away from the comment, Lowden tried to defend it in a television interview, which aired Monday:
“You know, before we all started having healthcare, in the olden days our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor, they would say ‘I’ll paint your house.’ I mean, that’s the old days of what people would do to get healthcare with your doctors. Doctors are very sympathetic people. I’m not backing down from that system.”
Though Lowden’s campaign has made a valid argument that medical bartering is not uncommon, no one has paid much attention. Democrats launched a website called Chickens for Checkups. They remixed her comments with techno music, a dancing chicken and a disco ball and slapped it on YouTube.
Although the Internet interest will no doubt fade, the episode leaves Lowden with a few headaches. First, it can make her seem out of touch — a grenade her campaign has lobbed at Reid — and does nothing to bolster her image as a serious candidate. Second, humorous jabs have a way of sticking. Just think of comedian Tina Fey’s mockery of Palin — “I can see Russia from my house!”
A sampling of this week’s Twitter traffic revealed a multitude of possible riffs:
“It’s even worse when they pay in rubber chickens, because those always bounce.”
“I threw a chicken in the toll basket on the Parkway other day & they looked at me like I was a GOP Sen candidate!”
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