Joel (and Larry) Dykstra, Call Jon Hunter...

Just ten weeks from Election Day, the Joel Dykstra campaign is still fighting for name recognition... from the press. Two days in a row, the Madison Daily Leader refers to the GOP U.S. Senate candidate as Larry Dykstra. In Wednesday's print MDL, a line at the end of the Herseth Sandlin–Lien headline article refers readers to "a story on Tim Johnson and Larry Dykstra" on page 3. In Thursday's print edition, "Larry Dykstra" appears in a front-page headline (over an AP story that correcetly identifies the candidate as Joel).

Boy, if Jon Hunter's paper really is a "glory and praise pamphlet for Republican policy,"* you'd think it would also get the Republicans' names right. Or are we just harkening back to the golden days of Larry Pressler's gentle Senatorship?

*David Kranz, "S.D. Voters Lose When Pressler, Muenster Debate Campaign Purity," Argus Leader, 1990.04.18; cited in Jon Lauck, Daschle vs. Thune: Anatomy of a High-Plains Senate Race, University of Oklahoma: Norman, OK, 2007, p. 117.