Via DaTechGuy and Fleming and Hayes comes forty-five seconds of amusement.  For those without video access, the video below shows Sean Bielat (Barney Frank‘s challenger in MA-04) being (badly) heckled by an onlooker.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWmLAqYjvLg&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Turns out that said heckler was Frank’s SO[*] James Ready, who you might remember from the pot bust thing, or perhaps the yelling at ophthalmologists thing.   Sean Bielat, of course, you know from the suddenly giving Barney Frank a real race for a change thing.

Now, I don’t mind that the Frank campaign is sending out people to heckle Bielat.  Part of the game.  I also don’t give a tinker’s dam that Barney Frank’s SO is a guy, either.  But what I do find funny is that if you were to take out the names and redo this story in terms of Candidate A has to send Significant Other out to heckle Candidate B because there’s nobody else to do it and asked a bystander which candidate was the challenger, he or she would probably say Candidate A.

This is how long-term incumbents lose, you know: they assume that they’re never going to need to keep a proper campaign staff, so when they turn out to need one they have to hastily improvise, often to unintentionally hilarious results.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

[* SO = ‘Significant Other.’  My apologies for the acronym. – ML]