Tweeting to Terrace Hill

"Facebookers" have had the jump on this "War of the Worlds-esque, Onion-like, pretend news" all day.  Nick Ryan, a long-time aide to former Congressman Jim Nussle who served as Nussle's 2006 campaign manager when Nussle ran for governor, has a post which declares: "I'm a 31 year old business owner. Lots of experience with non-profits. And boy..Terrace Hill here I come!" 

For context, you should know that 32-year-old Christian Fong of Cedar Rapids declared himself a candidate for governor on Tuesday with a Tweet on Twitter.  

Ryan's "status" report on his Facebook page prompted his Facebook "friends" to joke with him about the color of his campaign signs (Ryan promises they'll be green: "I'm Irish. There will be a shamrock on the sign."). There was also a crack about a "community organizer" running for governor.  Ryan promised a tweet about his "campaign" on July 4.  (I guess today and tomorrow would be the "exploratory phase" of his decision-making process.) 

In case that "War of the Worlds" cultural reference does not ring a bell, it's a reference to the 1938 Orson Wells radio broadcast which led some listeners to conclude Martians were invading.  Nick Ryan is not a Martian, but he's NOT a candidate for governor either.  Ryan is just ridiculing Mr. Fong, who IS a candidate for governor.. 

Mr. Todd Dorman, columnist for The Cedar Rapids Gazette, wrote a column today about the Tweet that marked the start of Fong's campaign.  "We’ve gone from bunting and balloon drops to 140 characters on my BlackBerry," Dorman wrote of Fong's campaign announcement.  Dorman has links to some of Fong's blog posts in his column, too, if you want to learn more about Fong's views.

Dorman also notes Fong's name rhymes with wrong and hints some of Fong's opponents may use the Fong-wrong rhyme against him. Maybe it's because Dorman and I weathered, er covered the Leonard Boswell versus Larry McKibben campaign which featured an ad that made this declaration: quit your fibbin' Larry McKibben. Yes, leaving the G off the word fibbing makes the word rhyme with McKibben. There was also the 1994 campaign that pitted incument Terrry Branstad against challenger Bonnie Campbell.  Branstad ran an ad which featured a talking cow.  "Don't gamble with Campbell!" the cow warned viewers.

I'll just close this post with a final warning: don't fall for the Ryan hook on Facebook.