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Ham Takes Off
By Greg L | 19 May 2007 | Prince William County | 15 Comments
Today’s NPR “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” show mentioned the Ham Sandwich for Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney campaign, and gave the URL for the campaign website. The result has been a substantial, although so far manageable, boost in website traffic coming from across North America. What is notable about this traffic is the volume being referred from webmail sites such as Yahoo and Google, which tells me that not only are show listeners visiting the website, but they’ve emailed their friends and they are visiting as well. It’s spreading.
Although national attention doesn’t necessarily translate into lots of people dedicated to writing in “Ham Sandwich” in the Commonwealth’s Attorney race this November, it seems this campaign has attracted that first difficult-to-achieve entry into a wider public consciousness. Ham could make it into the realm of transient cultural memes that advertisers so cherish, such as we saw with “Where’s the beef?”, “Whassup?” and more recently “Can you hear me now?” Although “he can do the job just as well as the current one” isn’t quite as catchy as a marketing slogan as some of the others, the novelty of the idea and it’s execution so far has the potential to become a national phenomenon. If that happens, Paul Ebert is toast.
2260 HTTP requests to the ham sandwich webserver were made in the first hour since the show finished. Paul Ebert should be worried.
UPDATE: NPR has posted the audio from the show here. Ham was mentioned in the “Lightning Round”, and it was fantastic.
UPDATE 2: More on this is over at Raising Ham.
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15 Comments
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Heck, if the Geico cavemen can get their own TV series based upon their commercials, just think of the possibilities Ham has after being elected!!!
I missed the portion of the show where they mentioned Ham. Did anyone else catch it? I know it ran as I got an email from someone in Florida about it.
What did this guy do to deserve such ire? Does he let rapists and murderers go or something? I keep seeing these ham sandwich threads and find myself wondering why this whole campaign was started??
Well, for one thing park’d, he’s very supportive of the systematic destruction of an innocent business owner in Manassas Park.
I am usually on the same side of every issue on this site including the unlawful harrassment of the MP business, but could someone please explain how Paul Ebert has exploited this business? I have only seen one of the most successful Commonwealth Attorneys ever in VA. Hell, he was even able to return a death sentence on Paul Powell twice! While I agree he should look into the what I see as a clear crime, maybe there is more in the background that we just haven’t seen. And if not, I am not sure I can support a ham sandwich over a CA who puts more murderers on death row than any other CA’s in VA.
Citizen Sam, I said “for one thing”……
Powell escaped the death penalty in his first trial, and was only given the death sentence after he was re-tried subsequent to Powell shooting his mouth off to his cellmate. Powell raped and murdered one girl, and raped and nearly murdered her sister who survived to testify against him. How would a case like this not be a slam-dunk?
See http://www.vadp.org/cases/powell.htm for a summary.
Sam, at least pick out a case where it might have involved some degree of effort on the part of the prosecutor. In the Powell case, Ebert actually screwed up in the first trial, and managed to get lucky and get a second crack at this case.
Grg,
You ae wrong about this being a slam dunk. You never know when a liberal judge is going to decide to write law rather than be the judge he is suppossed to be. Ebert has been the MOST successful at putting criminals away and unless you can show a real candidate for Commonwealths Attorney, then Ebert should be supported for his work. All I am saying, is give me a legitimate candidate, and I will listen. All this silly stuff about a ham sandwich is making your blog look like a comical web site rather than the political information site is really is. And I do mean this is a great plac for information, so why not keep it that way. What do you think first time visitors think when they read about you supporting a ham sandwich for CA.
Sam,
I think in a while you may end up changing your mind on this. Stay tuned, as there will be some coverage on why folks might not want Ebert re-elected, which should also help to clarify why Ham is the only announced opponent.
Citizen Sam, I must wonder from whense your defensiveness stems. If nothing else, look upon this as the “feel good” campaign of a season that has few campaigns to feel good about.
It just makes me wonder what I am missing. Here we have one of the most respected CA in VA and you are trying to run a sandwich against him. No defenseness, I just feel very confused on this one.
I understand. Just stay tuned — all your questions will be answered.
As Greg suggests, Sam, there is much more to this than there appears to be. Ever wondered WHY Ebert has had only one opponent since he was first elected 40 years ago? It’s not as if he was a much-loved and respected local legend like Harry Parrish who, despite that, did have occasional opponents. Chuck Colgan has also always been a very popular figure in PWC, and the Republicans take him on almost every election. Now why do you think that not a single attorney in PWC (Republican, Independent or Democrat) has been willing to step up take him on for decades (until Hamilton Sandwich, that is)? Think about it.
I can’t wait. I am always willing to listen and admit when I am wrong. I hope that I haven’t been duped for so many years.
Sam, there is no reason for Ham to go negative against Ebert at this point in time. Ham’s superior qualifications are obviously garnering him support.
Oh, and Ham has never botched a case by letting statutes of limitation lapse. Ebert’s office can’t make the same claim.