A minor addendum to Karen’s observation that losing campaigns go negative: They also go furry. Somewhere buried in my hard drive are pleading emails, circa September 2004, from a DNC rep trying to get me post pictures of a dolphin at a strip club (in an attempt to smear the “real” dolphin that was following Kerry at the time). Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot from an enthusiastic GOP operative about the giant squirrels whose goal is to publicize Obama’s ACORN connection.
![matthewsnuts.jpg](http://swampland.time.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2008/10/matthewsnuts.jpg" width="479" height="357"/><br />Tweety and the squirrels.</div>
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<p>Strangely, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqbxwui0CMk">Matthews</a> did not acknowledge the fuzzy interlopers. My source close to the squirrels says that an MSNBC employee explained the snub thusly: “You guys are absurd – that’s why Matthews didn’t ask you a question.”</p>
<p>And yet he keeps having Howard Fineman on.</p>
<p>This is the squirrels’ argument: “Like their human friends, squirrels all over the country are sitting around their kitchen tables worried about how to pay their squirrelages and heat their trees. Obama’s extensive relationship with ACORN — which his campaign has sought to conceal from the squirrel and human communities — raises serious questions about the judgment of the person who wants to be chief executive of our economy.”</p>
<p>Here is the official Obama campaign response, via “spokeshuman Tommy Vietor”: “If they really think this is an important issue, why make a joke of it by dressing up like Alvin and the Chipmunks.”</p>
<p>First: Whatever else those furry creatures are, they are squirrels. I dunno, maybe Vietor is one of those bigots to whom all rodents look alike. Lastly, if I were the boyish <a href="http://www.facebook.com/people/Tommy_Vietor/631175710">Tommy Vietor</a>, I’d be careful about dismissing critics for being too cute to be taken seriously.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth: The squirrels could probably do a lot for their adorable cause by denouncing anti-ACORN <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/730636.html">ugliness</a>.</p>
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