Say Anything Blog

In the blogging world there’s a term called “sock puppetry” which we use to describe people who post under several different names in blog comment sections mostly praising themselves or their other comments/posts.  It’s a big “no no,” as it is not only dishonest but also (frankly) a little childish.

Well apparently the same thing can happen on talk radio.  I’m told that today Republican Insurance Commissioner Adam Hamm appeared on Joel Heitkamp’s show and received a call from someone calling himself “MF” but was really possibly his just-declared Democrat opponent Jasper Schneider.  This “MJ” asked Hamm if he knew how many uninsured kids there were in North Dakota, and was generally rather harassing.

Apparently both Hamm and Heitkamp recognized his voice, though neither commented on it on-air.

I’ve attempted to reach Jasper tonight to see what he has to say about this, but he hasn’t responded.

Update: I got a hold of Jasper, and he said it absolutely wasn’t him on the radio.  He also said that he called Hamm directly after the show and assured him that he wasn’t the caller.  According to Schneider, Hamm acknowledged that he didn’t think it was him either.

Jasper told me that he doesn’t endorse that kind of campaigning, and indeed this sort of thing would seem out of place from Schneider who has run rather moderate campaigns in the past.

It does sound like this is going to be a nasty campaign, however.  After Schneider made some comments about addressing the issues at WSI in his campaign announcements, the NDGOP issued a press release blistering him for not knowing what the office of Insurance Commissioner does.

Which is true, as far as it goes.  The Insurance Commissioner has nothing to do with WSI, but then I took Schneider’s comments more in the vein of using the post of Insurance Commissioner to call for reforms at WSI.