The Smell of Victory

As we descend into the dark final days of a midterm election, candidates are pulling out all the stops to get voters’ attention. Witness Carl Paladino, the Republican candidate in New York’s gubernatorial race. No fan of subtlety, Paladino is literally trashing his opponents, sending out 200,000 mailers laced with the scent of a freshly turned landfill. The flyer, headlined “Something STINKS in Albany,” depicts seven currently serving Democrats, six of whom are in various stages of legal distress.

According to Paladino campaign spokesman Michael Caputo, the mailing’s odor is designed to grow more pungent the longer it is kept around, suggesting that it, like the politicians it depicts, should be tossed out as soon as possible. Clever pitch, but it may be a conceptual stretch for the homeowner simply trying to figure out which jerk is responsible for stuffing his mailbox with stinking garbage.

Source: Associated Press, via NPR’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!”