One last note on the Mike Taylor ad. It's interesting that Taylor was already down in the polls at 35%. That means that his opponent didn't even need to shoot down that crippled candidacy. But he did. Heh. It's amazing that a guy that far behind can go even further down, to "the toilet," whatever those numbers are.

In short, the guys who created that ad deserve a big fucking raise. I can imagine them being called into the campaign manager's office, being sat down. "Boys, you know, we've taken a lot of flack for that ad. Gay baitin', they're calling it. They want someone to lose their job. But you know, we;re not even gonna have to bother campaigning now. That's extra money I can use. We won this race. Why don't you boys get some hookers and crack cocaine."

And they're still at it. You gotta admire this kind of politcal beatdown.

HELENA (AP) - A Montana Democratic Party mailing that assails Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Taylor for mishandling student loan money was unintentionally sent to voters after he dropped out of the race, a party official said Wednesday.

Dore Schwinden, coordinated campaign director for the Democrats, said the party had tried to stop all mailings of the one-page flier after Taylor's surprise announcement last Thursday that he was abandoning his campaign against Democratic incumbent Max Baucus.

In leaving the race, Taylor cited a TV ad about the loan problems found at his former beauty school in Colorado. He said the commercial used 20-year-old pictures of him in an attempt to portray him as a gay hairdresser.

Shortly after he disclosed his decision, Democrats said they ceased all forms of advertising related to Taylor.

Schwinden said Wednesday that party staffers were unable to halt delivery of the flier to the Billings post office that day, but were able to stop shipments headed for other post offices.

"I did my level best to stop everything that was going on in regard to Taylor advertising," he said. "Unfortunately, some got out. There were a lot of pieces there. Most of them got stopped."

The ones that didn't feature a full-color picture of a grinning, wide-eyed, blue-faced person sporting a ruffled, bright orange wig, pink boa and hoop earrings.

"At Mike Taylor's hair care schools, someone besides the customers got clipped," the flier said. "Taylor clipped the taxpayers by abusing student loans."

The clown-like picture was "supposed to portray a bad haircut and draw attention to the fact that the customers got clipped at the hair school," Schwinden said.

But Bowen Greenwood, spokesman for Taylor, said the picture appeared to be man made up like a woman and was another jab at Taylor's sexuality.

"It looked like they were trying to make the same insinuation they were with the ad, questioning Mike's personal life," he said. "It was in bad taste to start with and continuing after Mike has stopped his campaign shows a remarkable lack of good taste."

Schwinden said the picture was not a man in drag or intended to convey any subtle message. He provided information from the ad agency that prepared the flier showing the model was a woman.

Greenwood said the Democrats were able to block distribution of two other prepared mailings that targeted Taylor - one dealing with deregulation of the electric industry and the other with Social Security - and questioned why this one slipped through.

"When they have stuff in the pipe and want to pull it, they seem to have some success with that," he said. "But this went out anyway."

Schwinden said the beauty school flier could not be stopped entirely because it was the one scheduled to be mailed as the first week of the TV commercial was ending.

The TV ad, which Taylor called "character assassination," revealed his former Colorado beauty school had misspent federal student loan money. But in dropping out of the race, Taylor said the damage was done by including video of him wearing a beard, open-chested shirt and gold chains while giving another man a facial.