This week MTV announced it was repealing its policy against accepting political advertisements, with the stipulation any spots they accept must come from candidates or their parties, and not those sleazy 527 groups. Barack Obama is said to be first in line with an ad buy — but a report from 2006 says another senator already beat him to it.

Rick Santorum, one of America's most famous publicly elected homophobes, was said to have bought ads on MTV in the fall of 2006 when he was gearing up for his re-election campaign. The ads were a companion to his new homepage RSiteonline.com (no longer online). As Hotline reported in October 2006, "the flash site boasts pseudo-news segments featuring two Pennsylvania College Republicans discussing opponent 'Bobby Casey Jr's' track record on issues such as attendance and immigration. Shorter versions of the spots will appear as spots on MTV. It's an interesting strategy to try to close the loop between YouTube and the Boob Tube crowds. Total communication integration results in a sum greater than its parts because it drives more traffic to the Web site. But in terms of actually getting young voters to the polls, it's a tough call for advertising on MTV. Plus the average age of the station's voters is just over 21, and while known for being politically active, the youngins' are completely unreliable at the polls. Nevertheless, it's the first effort to reach the YouTube generation on multiple media fronts."

So either: Santorum actually did buy airtime on MTV in '06, or his campaign merely said it was planning to do so, but was then rebuffed by the network, which at the time refused such ads. An, in that case, maybe it was Santorum who got Santorum'd.