Don't use fake quotes in draft emails. Especially if you're calling your opponent an asshole.

A few years back, a friend in higher education told me that her college had to reprint tens of thousands of dollars worth of those glossy viewbooks because they failed to swap out a fake promise of "millions in water polo scholarships."

And now, the Kansas campaign of Jim Slattery for U.S. Senate has been embarassed (and suspended a staffer) for accidentally sending a broadcast email with a placeholder quote:

John from Dodge City shared this,
"Pat Roberts... is an asshole"

Seriously, folks. Remember the first rule: Don't do anything that might get you fired. From the Topeka Capital-Journal:

A campaign aide for U.S. Senate candidate Jim Slattery was suspended today for sending to thousands of people an e-mail containing unflattering comments about Republican rival Pat Roberts.

And don't blame the technology. The technology didn't magically put those seven letters together. More from the C-J:

In the follow-up explanatory e-mail, Staples said "technical issues on the part of our software vendor" contributed to a "system malfunction" that automatically sent the draft document to e-mail accounts.

As the C-J editorialized:

As self-inflicted wounds go, the e-mail blunder by Jim Slattery's campaign staff was a doozy. ... [T]he campaign stumbled in citing computer problems for the gaffe. Whatever. It's hard to believe a computer was at fault for someone typing an offensive word on a keyboard and saving the document. What's harder to believe is that anyone in the public eye would still include such a term in a computer document, especially an e-mail. ... It remains to be seen how much the issue will hurt Slattery's campaign, but it certainly didn't help. At worst, it makes the Slattery campaign — and, by reflection, Slattery himself — look amateurish and poorly organized.

'Nuff said.

Team Slattery, now that you've taken your lumps, get back to work. Just 70 days or so to beat Pat Roberts.