Kreibich, Kreitlow or Crybaby

The election has kept me too busy to blog lately, but this story about Democratic State Senate candidate Pat Kreitlow was just too good to pass up.

Kreitlow is threatening legal action against the Chippewa County Republican Party for sending out this mailer announcing that former News TV-13 Anchor Rob Kriebich has endorsed State Senator Dave Zien for re-election.

The Democrat says the mailer is intended to confuse voters into thinking that Kreitlow, who is also a former TV-13 news anchor, is himself endorsing Zien rather than Kreibich, and he believes the following statute may apply to what he called an effort to suppress voters.

Wisconsin State Statute 12.05 - False representations affecting elections. No person may knowingly make or publish, or cause to be made or published, a false representation pertaining to a candidate or referendum which is intended or tends to affect voting at an election.

But nothing in the GOP flyer is false. Robin Kreibich is endorsing Dave Zien and he is a former Channel 13 TV anchor. The fact that Kreitlow and Kreibich were once both anchors and their last names both begin with KR does not obligate Republicans to mention Kreitlow's name in the endorsement to mitigate any confusion those similarities may cause.

The last minute GOP trick appears to have worked because Kreitlow spent all day Saturday trying to get press coverage of the flyer and posting on his blog when he should have been knocking on doors.

For the record, the only media outlet stupid enough to show up at Kreitlow's emergency press conference was his former employer, WEAU TV 13.