Editor surprised his Santorum headline went viral

“There’s just no way this headline wasn’t intentional,” writes Charles Apple.

Well, let’s find out.

I asked Kyle Whitmire, who wrote the piece, about his “Santorum comes from behind in Alabama three-way” hed. The former Birmingham Weekly staffer tells Romenesko readers:

I thought a few folks might get a chuckle out of it. We try to have a sense of humor, and the double entendre was too hard to resist. In Alabama, it’s the only way to stay sane sometimes.

However, I had no idea it would go viral the way it did. First I began to get email messages and texts from people in other states, but when I saw tweets in the cyrillic alphabet, I knew I might have set the woods on fire.

Also, to get the joke, you have to have a dirty mind.

* Funny or Die: The most unfortunate Rick Santorum headlines