What’s a poor politician to do if he builds a campaign
website and the voters don’t come visit? Well, if he’s Republican candidate Gary
Marbut, he offers the possibility of winning a BIG CASH PRIZE to those who are
willing to go to his site and spend some
time poking around.
Here’s the way it works (and I’m not making this up): Marbut
is promising to post a trivia question every week between now and the November election
for voters in House District 99, where he’s running. All the voters who get the
right answer every week will have their names entered in a drawing. The drawing will be held November 5, the day before the election, and the lucky
winner walk away with a $2,000 cash prize! And the great part is you don’t really
have to know any trivia because the answers to all the questions will be
“located somewhere in [Marbut’s] website.” Just cruise around the site long
enough and presto, there’s your answer.
Now I don’t know that any of this is illegal (Marbut makes
it clear that you don’t have to vote for him, or even promise to vote for him,
in order to win) or even unethical (at least Marbut’s intentions here are
pretty transparent), but it sure seems pathetic. Here we have a candidate with
2,000 bucks worth of campaign money and a choice to make. He could spend the money to develop an informative,
readable, interesting website with solid content that voters will want to read
(actually, he could do a lot more than that with $2,000). Or he can use it to
induce voters to overcome their reluctance and log on to a site that is
apparently chock-a-block full of trivia. Marbut likes the latter better and who
knows, the voters may like it as well. But they ought to think long and hard
about whether or not they want to send the guy who dreamed up this gimmick to
Helena to manage the public’s money.
Actually, it shouldn’t take all that much thinking, because the
people in House District 99 have an excellent candidate to vote for in Democrat
Kim Dudik. As Mayor Engen puts it, Kim’s “experience
working for some of our community's most vulnerable citizens means she's tough
and tenacious, compassionate and caring, thoughtful and decisive.” If you want to know more about Kim, go to
her website. But if you do, expect just straight talk and no
cash prizes.
