Though his campaign is so low-budget that it is not even recognized by the Federal Election Commission, U.S. Senate candidate Daniel “The Wig Man” Vovak might be helping change the face of state campaigns in Maryland.
With a meager war chest, Vovak, a Republican from Rockville who wears a powdered white wig when campaigning, placed eight of his self-produced campaign advertisements on YouTube.com. That Web site, with its more than 70 million free videos available, is quickly becoming a destination for as many as 6 million daily visitors.
There he published a number of attack ads against fellow Republican Michael Steele — the current lieutenant governor who is running for Senate — that border on being embarrassingly low budget and of the you-can’t-do-that-on-TV variety.
And people as far away as California have taken notice.
“You can no longer hide information from voters because of the Internet,” Vovak, a 34-year-old former newspaper reporter and editor who has raised less than $5,000 for his campaign, said Tuesday. “The way information now is processed has changed. I’m going to where my message can spread.”
One of Vovak’s ads, along with others made by Democratic senatorial candidates Dennis Rasmussen and Allan Lichtman, was listed Monday on Los Angeles blogger Eric Spiegelman’s worst list for the campaign season on his Web site Cinemocracy. The ads, “do not inspire confidence that the candidate is worthy of the office,” Spiegelman wrote in an e-mail.
Of the three ads — “Goldfish Debate,” featuring a mannequin head depicting Vovak in a wig debating a goldfish, supposedly representing Steele, in a bowl wearing a necktie — was named the worst. The video had about 10 hits during the three weeks since Vovak had posted it. By Tuesday, it had nearly 600.
Steele spokesman Doug Heye said Tuesday that he had not seen Vovak’s online ads, then added that the campaign will post Steele’s Internet ads on YouTube. But the ads won’t respond to Vovak, Heye said.
“To be honest, I don’t think you’d see the Steele campaign responding to an attack made by a candidate who dresses up as Mozart,” Heye said.
