The thing about the Internet is that once you are hooked up, it is mostly free.

If you are a politician, it means you are flinging things out there all day and night at no cost, except for whatever psychological damage is extracted from rolling in the mud so long.

Take the U.S. Senate race between former GOP Gov. Linda Lingle and Democratic Rep. Mazie Hirono.

Early in the week, the Lingle camp released a campaign video via email entitled "Democrats for Lingle." It ended with a plea for checks to be written to the Lingle campaign.

Well, it wasn’t just Democrats for Lingle; it was a bunch of Republicans and a couple of Democrats for Lingle.

Soon the media started checking and reported with a bit of a giggle that Lingle’s ad buddies included former GOP officials: "The TV spot, originally posted online under the headline ‘Democrats for Lingle,’ also features several Republicans."

"‘I’m a Democrat, and I’m voting for Linda Lingle,’ says Elaine Slavinsky, the first person to appear onscreen.

Slavinsky ran for state Senate as a Republican in 2004, an ABC News blog chortled.

A Lingle campaign spokeswoman said, "nowhere in the spot do we state that all individuals featured are Democrats. The spot is about people across the state — from diverse backgrounds, political affiliations and perspectives — that agree Linda Lingle is the clear choice for U.S. Senate."

Betsy Lin, Hirono’s campaign manager, fired off her own email that, before ending in her own plea for money, got in a few punches.

"The problem is, seven of the eight ‘Democrats’ in the ad have established ties to the Republican Party — including former Republican candidates for state Legislature, a former local Republican Party chair, and even a current staffer for her U.S. Senate campaign," Lin said.

Then the Hirono staffer went on to say, "No matter how hard she tries, it’s impossible for Lingle to hide her true allegiance to the national Republican Party."

Well, of course, if she wasn’t running as a Republican, she wouldn’t be in the general election, unless Lingle had suddenly switched to the Green Party, because if she ran as a Democrat, she wouldn’t win.

The problem Lingle faces is much deeper than whether she is imagining that her friends are "D’s" or "R’s." The problem isn’t even that she is running as a Republican in deep Blue Hawaii.

Lingle’s top problem is that her party would replace our local-born President Barack Obama, and second, that former Gov. Mitt Romney is running at the top of her party’s ticket.

The only thing more improbable than Romney’s last two weeks of stumbling would be if Lindsay Lohan opened up a driver’s ed school.

Right after fumbling his convention speech by forgetting to mention our troops in Afghanistan or that we were still a nation at war, the former Massachusetts governor segued into the erroneous criticism of Obama over the death of an American ambassador and then was further damaged by the leaked video quoting him saying 47 percent of Americans are dependent on government and essentially are bought and paid for by government hand-outs.

Major national news outlets went two news cycles before the national GOP candidates started moving away from the last Romney statement.

Lingle joined the group Wednesday afternoon, saying, "I do not agree with his characterization of all individuals who are receiving government assistance. …

"It is not fair to place these individuals into any one category. The people of Hawaii know I don’t believe in labels and I know they don’t either," Lingle said in an emailed statement.

This came after Hirono attacked Lingle saying, "Romney is saying, ‘If you support President Obama, you’re lazy.’"

Lingle sought to drive far away from Romney, declaring, "I am not a rubber stamp for the national party and I am not responsible for the statements of Mitt Romney."

The U.S. Senate, however, is not a nonpartisan body — and the question for Hawaii voters will not be whether Lingle is Republican, but whether there is room for her in Romney’s Republican Party.

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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser. com.