[dropcap]T[/dropcap]HE main national election battle this year is over control of the U.S. Senate, and swing-state Colorado is hosting one of the hottest contests in the nation, the one pitting incumbent Democrat Mark Udall against Republican Congressman Cory Gardner. How do we know this to be true? How else? We know it because beloved catch-all internet hype and list site BuzzFeed has included Gardner in a typically silly-compelling piece about candidates posting b-roll on the internet for SuperPACS to tap into for their horrible television commercials.
The piece offers satirical advice to candidates in what it calls a “beginners guide to making your own silent b-roll political ad.” The writer makes great use of Gardner b-roll.
But! BuzzFeeed is headquartered in someplace that is not Colorado. The writers are clever but they don’t know jack about Colorado politics. Even if they do know jack, they don’t Mike! The BuzzFeed wags found b-roll of Gardner where Colorado Independent columnist Mike Littwin, longtime staple of the Colorado political journalism sphere, is called a vagrant lurker. A vagrant lurker! He’s not a vagrant lurker. He’s a journalist, which is American for badly dressed, semi-shaven, over educated, poorly paid, observant… lurker.
So BuzzFeed got that wrong.
What did it get right? Most of the rest, including this: One of the things candidates feel the need to do is make a creepy pan to camera. That Gardner pans to camera away from his family at a moment when his wife looks like she could use some help over here! is the perfect extra-creepy touch.
Hat-tip to Colorado Peak Politics, which (hoozah!) stood up for the facts and defended Mike Littwin as not a vagrant.
