Walsh blasts Bean campaign for e-mail gaffe

Republican congressional candidate Joe Walsh's campaign is taking issue with a news release e-mailed by Democratic U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean's office Thursday.

The e-mail reproduced an opinion piece Bean wrote for Thursday's Daily Herald. It also included an electronic link to a reproduction of the newspaper's front page, which contained a story about Republican Party leaders' recent meeting with Walsh.

The link is evidence of Bean using public resources "to conduct politics," Walsh spokeswoman Whitney Schlosser said.

"Rep. Bean consistently confuses public money for her money," Schlosser said in an e-mail. "This is just another reason why we cannot afford Melissa Bean in Congress."

Bean spokesman Jonathan Lipman took the blame for the e-mail and said the inclusion of the link to the Daily Herald front page was the result of a cut-and-paste error.

"My intention was to paste only the image of the Daily Herald (logo), but I accidentally copied it along with a link to the Daily Herald front page that's part of our standing internal clips template," Lipman explained.

Schlosser didn't buy the cut-and-paste excuse.

"At best, this is a cut-and-paste goof," she said. "At worst, it is a callous misuse of taxpayer funds to slime Joe Walsh."

Walsh, of Winnetka, and Bean, of Barrington, are running for the 8th District seat that represents parts of Cook, Lake and McHenry counties. Green Party candidate Bill Scheurer of Lindenhurst also is running.