Hey, it says Economics in the title. That counts, right?

Dave Spence, "economics" candidate for Missouri Governor.

A politician inflating his/her achievments is nothing new.  Let’s face it, it’s like a dog taking a leak on a fire hydrant.  They just can’t help themselves.


If I tried to link all the examples of politicians puffing up their records, I’d crash the Internet, and then you’d all blame me when you couldn’t read up about the latest Kardashian business venture or Lindsay Lohan’s latest trip to jail/rehab/Vegas club.  I don’t want to be blamed for that, so we’ll just stick with the story I’m about to tell.

Dave Spence is a Republican running for governor in Missouri.  He has gone around the state for weeks on end, talking about his economics degree and how he’s a perfect fit as governor because he’ll know how to tackle the state’s budget woes.  He’s Dave Spence, economics degree holder, and he’ll fix your fiscal insolvency!

Oops.

Poor Dave, he’s not an economics degree holder, he’s a degree holder in HOME economics.  That’s right, Dave Spence graduated from the University of Missouri in 1981 with a degree in how to be just like Betty Crocker and Martha Stewart combined!

Now, I can understand how Dave would be embarrassed by this.  I mean, who wants to talk about getting a degree in home economics?  A program designed for women back in the days when that was all women could aspire to because not having something hanging between your legs was considered a career disqualifier….yeah, even women wouldn’t want to say they have a degree in THAT, but a dude?  He’d be sentenced to a lifetime of Miller Lite commercials about his lack of manliness (side note: Miller Lite is one of the worst “beers” in existence. If they put their promotional costs into quality costs, maybe they’d have something.)

So of course Dave tried to weasel out of this. From the Post-Dispatch: “He acknowledged that the description of his degree on the campaign’s website may be misleading — “If you want me to change it, I will,” Spence said Monday — but as of Tuesday afternoon, the biography section was unchanged.” See here. On Thursday, the site was finally updated to reflect his HOME economics degree.

And when the AP pointed out Dave’s flyers also touted his economics degree from Missouri’s School of Business at U-Mizz, you got this: “I have said all along that I will not or do not lie,” he said. “A lot of this is overblown, as I was not aware of any place that said business school.”

Lesson of this story? If you’re running for office, just say where you graduated from. Don’t say what your degree was in, and definitely DON’T LIE.  Save the embarassment for things like having a baby puke on you, or tripping on airplane stairs. Courtesy of Naked D.C.