The Democrats have Vice President Joe Biden for gaffe laughs. Now the Republicans in Colorado have a candidate wrestling with an all-too-familiar PR scandal in his scenic home state: not being able to recognize his own state's mountains.
It's the sort of gaffe possibly unique to a state with more than a dozen distinct mountain ranges. First it was former Rep. Bob Schaffer, whose initial ad in an unsuccessful U.S. Senate race last year touted his Colorado loyalty by noting that he proposed to his wife atop Pikes Peak.
The problem: The ad flashed an image of Alaska's Mt. McKinley.
Now it's former Rep. Scott McInnis who hopes to become the GOP's gubernatorial nominee next year. His Web page debuted with a striking image of snow-capped peaks. Problem is, the peaks look like none in Colorado.
The slip-up was unearthed by the political junkies at ColoradoPols.com (who, like many Coloradans, seem to be a bit mountain-mad as well).
They determined the image is actually of the Canadian Rockies.
The McInnis campaign swiftly replaced it with a photo of the Flatirons, iconic peaks that loom over the left-leaning town of Boulder. Blame Google Images, said spokesman Mike Hesse.
A young McInnis volunteer searched the Web for "Colorado Rockies" and got the Canadian image instead.
Staffers had been warned to make sure all images were 100% Colorado.
"We're aware this had happened before, and we told them to be very careful of that," Hesse said. "It was a hiccup. Overall I'm delighted with the website, and we're moving forward."
A British spin on an urgent message
Al Gore is now comparing the battle against global warming to the fight against Adolf Hitler in World War II.
In a speech to students at Oxford on Tuesday, the former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize laureate conceded that there is still work to do to convince political leaders that the threat of climate change is as urgent as the Nazi threat had been.
The Senate is beginning debate on a cap-and-trade bill to curb emissions, predicted to be an even tougher fight than in the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) had to twist arms and trade votes to win a narrow victory.
Gore seemed to acknowledge the difficulty of converting grass-roots passion into political will.
