A Grass Roots Campaign from Vermont-Been there, Seen that...
Frederick Herman "Fred" Tuttle (July 18, 1919 – October 4, 2003) was an American dairy farmer, film actor and 1998 candidate for the U.S. Senate from the state of Vermont.
In 1998 Tuttle was persuaded to run in the Republican U.S. Senate primary. His opponent was Jack McMullen, a multi-millionaire who had lived in Massachusetts for most of his life. McMullen faced opposition from some Vermont Republicans who felt that he was a carpetbagger who apparently moved to Vermont for the sole purpose of establishing residency for a Senate run. The Vermont primary structure allows Democrats and Independents to vote in the Republican primary, and many people foresaw the possibility that Tuttle would beat McMullen by drawing votes across party lines. In addition, some may have hoped that a Tuttle campaign would help to publicize the film Man with a Plan.[2]
During the radio-broadcast debate, Tuttle asked a series of humorous local knowledge questions rather than political questions. McMullen was unable to correctly pronounce the names of several Vermont towns, or correctly answer Fred's question "How many teats a Holstein got?," answering "Six", instead of the correct "Four". In the primary, Tuttle defeated McMullen by ten percentage points. Winning the primary with 55 percent of the vote, Tuttle promptly endorsed the incumbent Democrat, Patrick Leahy.
Tuttle's election campaign against Democrat Senator Leahy, now his opponent in this US Senate election, was notable for the continuing publicity Tuttle received and for his continued endorsement of Leahy, of whom Tuttle said, "He knows how many tits on a cow".[4] Tuttle commented that he did not really want to win because he would have to move to Washington, D.C.. Despite his endorsement of his opponent, Tuttle garnered 48,051 votes (22 percent of the vote) in the actual election.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Tuttle
There's probably a couple of lessons in this.
