Right-winger gets zinger on gay porn site

SIOUX FALLS, S.D., Oct. 25 (UPI) -- An ad for a South Dakota conservative accidentally wound up on a racy Web site for gay men, the Sioux Falls Argus reported Monday.

John Thune, a traditional values Republican who supports a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages, is running a tight race to unseat the U.S. Senate's liberal minority leader, Tom Daschle.

Somehow, though, an ad for Thune ended up on Shirtless Just4U, which features explicit pictures of men in various stages of undress.

"Click here to join Students for Thune," the banner ad read. "It's time."

Daschle's staff was quick to alert reporters who learned Thune's staff had hired an advertising firm, Blattner Brunner, to help create the ad, which hired American Media Services to place it. AMS, in turn, bought space with Advertising.com, an online ad sales company that has a contract with Lycos to put ads on Lycos pages, which include the Tripod network. That network lets users put up their own Web pages.

Within hours the ad had been pulled and by the end of the day "Shirtless Just4U" was out of business.

"Obviously we wouldn't buy that," said Dick Wadhams, Thune's campaign manager.