“Rt issue”?

Jerry Kilgore’s campaign slipped up on Monday, but it’s not clear to me what hand they’ve shown.

This month’s New Republic has a big article about Richmond mayor Doug Wilder. The article ends with Wilder talking about the changes that he’s made in Richmond in his time as mayor, saying: For too many years this city has been satisfied with stultified mediocrity. … I’m not satisfied with mediocrity.”

Kilgore opponent Tim Kaine was, of course, mayor of Richmond for a time, so the Kilgore campaign would like to present this as a slap against Kaine on the part of Wilder. (Wilder, in a followup interview, said that he was certainly not talking about Kaine, saying that “this thing goes too far back to be the responsibility of any one individual.” Wilder knows full well that their brand-new strong-mayor form of government is what is permitting this reform, which simply wasn’t possible in the old system, in which the mayor was ceremonial, as in Charlottesville.)

But that’s not what’s interesting. What’s interesting is that this was called to the attention of reporters by way of an e-mail sent out by campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh, in which he accidentally included, at the bottom of the e-mail, the internal exchange that prompted the e-mail to reporters. The noteworthy bit was the e-mail from Jerry Kilgore (from his Blackberry, natch), in which he wrote:

How about sending this to press?? Get others to ask, what was Kaine’s role?? This could get us on offense on rt issue.

Bob Lewis covers this for the AP, writing:

Kilgore spokesman Tim Murtaugh, who forwarded the private note by mistake, said the “rt issue” referred to the “the poor management of Richmond during Kaine’s term as mayor.” He said “rt” is Kilgore’s shorthand for “right.”

Maybe “rt” is shorthand for “right,” but in this context, “rt” standing for something else (a proper noun) would make a great deal more grammatical sense. What could “rt” stand for? I wish I had some creative suggestions, though I’m hopeful that others may have some suggestions.

To the credit of the Kaine campaign, spokesman Mo Elleithee didn’t comment, saying, simply, “I’m going to take it easy on our friends at the Kilgore campaign because they’ve had a rough couple of weeks.”