Bamboozlement Watch

The Washington Post details the Ehrlich-Steele "fake sample ballots from homeless people" plan. Apparently Rep. Elijah Cummings, whose image Ehrlich and Steele appropriated for their Election Day flyers in 2002, made a preemptive strike this year, asking that neither they "nor any group associated with [their] campaign use my picture on mailers or Election Day ballots."

In comments, Thomas Nephew tracks down the radio program (C-SPAN's Washington Journal) on which Steele made his "everyone does it" defense of the fake ballots, and the actual quote:

Again, I have to laugh at that because I, I find that that's somewhat amusing that that's the same tactic that Democrats have used in previous campaigns against eachother and I borrowed from that, one, two, I don't find that nowhere nearly as offensive as the, the signs that went up around my county calling me a "Clarence Thomas", that we have to reject the "Clarence Thomas" Michael Steele.

Tags: maryland michael steele md-sen election 2006 voter suppression race