South Carolina Closets

After he wrote Over-Lawed to explain a run-in with a complicated securities law, Jay Stamper's thoughts must have turned to whatever other skeletons he had in his closet. Actually, Lindsey Graham has a closet. A more apt metaphor for Stamper might be... the Parisian catacombs. There are a lot of skeletons but regrettably, for him, few involve women, another thing he has in common with Lindsey Graham.

Anyways, like most people in their late 20’s, Stamper had experimented with purchasing the domain names of Republican members of Congress and linking them to websites promoting cannibalism, nudism and mail order brides. As part of our vetting process while we're thinking about helping him in his race against Graham, I asked Stamper about his brush with Republican Party cannibalism. Years later, he probably wishes he never did it-- just my guess-- but he was still chuckling at his attempt at political satire.

Congressman and future CIA director Porter Goss was put in the awkward position of having to explain why his name led to a site promoting the conversion of human breastmilk into cheese.

Childish stunts? Pranks committed by someone with too much time on their hands? Incredibly satisfying. Check on all counts. I enjoyed baiting Republicans in the press and inventing elaborate motivations ranging from radical activism to moneymaking. My friends thought it was hilarious. In my more pretentious moments, I would put on a black turtleneck and think of myself an avante garde performance artist for the internet age. As usual, my motivations were multiple: genuine anger at a Republican Congress that had just impeached the president, the thrill of seeing my name in print for the first time, satisfaction at tweaking authority. I enjoyed the controversy. I even found a monetary angle, putting the names up for sale on Ebay. In the end, I’m not particularly ashamed of having done it but not overly proud of it either, mostly because it could have been so much funnier.

Funnier? Like this?

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