Southern California-based U.S. Rep. John Campbell was the subject of a digital prank as a link on his website actually directed visitors to his challenger's site. And it appears the link went unnoticed by the Republican or his campaign staff (or supporters who viewed the site) until an Orange County Register political blog wrote about the link today. It was quickly fixed.

It started when an intern with the Orange County Democratic Party noticed a link on Campbell's site under the heading “Join the Resistance” didn't work because it was misspelled as campbellforcongres.com, missing a final “s” and further code that would have brought users to his manifesto page. So supporters of his rival for his congressional seat, Irvine city Councilwoman Beth Krom, purchased the one-“s” domain and had it direct visitors back to her campaign site.

Her campaign manager, Melahat Rafiei, said the campaign had a lot of fun with it: “It was hilarious to us. Every day I'd get up in the morning and check it and see: 'Oh, it's still there.' It was funny to see how long it would take for them to catch on.''

He said the link had been directing visitors to Krom's site since Nov. 16. Representatives of the Los Angeles-born and educated Republican tried to brush it off.

“This isn't really a story, but the problem's been fixed and that's that,'' Campbell spokesman Brent Hall said. “There's really nothing more to it than that.'

Sure, not only does Campbell's campaign have people who can't spell and don't read their own boss' manifesto, but he has supporters who didn't seem to notice either. Now that's the kind of leadership SoCal needs in Washington. Join the resistance indeed.

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