Is It Really That Hard to Say?

LAM'-behr-tee

Another VIP visit, another botched pronunciation for Jeff Lamberti. The Veep called him LAMberti (punching the first syllable) and LamberTI (punching the last syllable). Today in Des Moines, First Lady Laura Bush also went with LAMberti. She did, however, correct herself. And in her defense, she correctly said his name a handful of times.

One slightly mangled word later turned to a missing word. Here's the setup: The First Lady was talking about Lamberti's prowess of managing money. (Mind you, we were carrying her remarks live on tv at the time) She said, "He helped pass the largest income tax in Iowa's history." I'm pretty sure the word, "cut", should have been in that sentence. Oops. Probably not quite the line the campaign was looking for as it tries to pin Leonard Boswell with the name "The Tax Man."

Those minor facts aside, it was apparent the First Lady's visit brought out the women. The crowd was at least 50% females.

Some numbers from the event...

Guests: 240
Total Take: $200,000
Parade Steps Taken (by Lamberti according to Dave Roederer): 114,086