GOP amateurism of the day: Christine O’Donnell forgets to pay for her 30-minute ad

In what can only be deemed as the height of incompetence, Christine O’Donnell forgot to pay a TV station for a 30-minute ad for the candidate last night. It was comedy gold as Christine O’Donnell tweeted excitedly up until the supposed air time, then this:

Graphic: Crooks & Liars

Turns out Christine’s campaign forgot  to pay for – or couldn’t afford – the commercial. While O’Donnell and the Malkins on the right are furious at the station, mocking another media outlet for being supposedly part of the ‘lamestream’, the facts – again – appear to have a liberal bias. And incompetence - as usual – has a most certain conservative one.

Bet not many at that TV station won’t be voting for O’Donnell tomorrow.

“We are told channel 28 ‘forgot’ to air it…both times… even though we paid for the time slot last week,” O’Donnell tweeted. “Dirty politics again? I’d like to think the County run station really did just ‘forget’ even though we reminded them this morning.”

I called Channel 28 just now, where Tim Qualls, the independent producer who owns the relevant time slot, picked up the phone.

Qualls said he’d been promised the tape by 5:00 p.m. Friday, but didn’t receive it until 9:30 p.m. last night.

“It was all them — nobody forgot or anything else,” he said, adding that “I’m about ready to throw a lawsuit against her.”

“I didn’t receive a check til about 30 minutes ago,” he said. O’Donnell has had problems with vendors in the past, but Qualls said he likes cash up front from all campaigns.

“Any time I’m dealing with a politician I’m concerned about my bills,” he said.

UPDATE: O’Donnell’s campaign spokesman Doug Sachtleben emails:

The half-hour long special from the O’Donnell campaign was not aired as scheduled on Sunday night and Monday morning. Delaware 28 Executive Producer Tim Qualls explained to the campaign that he was out of the area for the weekend because of a family illness, and was apparently unaware of the campaign’s transaction last Friday between a local third-party buyer and Channel 28 employees.