Dead Man Running

A zombie (as in “A. Zombie”) joined the campaign trail last week as a candidate for president.

The move is an effort by AMC to put a faux political spotlight on its ongoing campaign publicizing the carriage impasse with Dish, which resulted in the AMC networks’ programming exiting the satellite operator’s lineup, which programming includes AMC’s The Walking Dead drama series.

AMC plans to take the recently unearthed candidate on a six-city bus tour that began with stops last week in San Diego and Dallas and will include stops at both the Republican Convention (Tampa) and Democratic (Charlotte) over the next two weeks.

The candidate’s single issue is to encourage Dish subscribers to switch to another provider before the Oct. 14, 2012, debut of the show’s third season. No word on when he would give his first “stump” speech. Sorry, but blame an AMC staffer for that one.

Will the candidate pick — he will likely need a shovel, too — a zombie VP? Yes, says a spokesperson for the campaign, but “not yet.”

Dish said back in May that it was not renewing its carriage deal with AMC’s nets due to the price, first moving them to the satellite channel graveyard — AMC, for example, went from ch. 130 to ch. 9069 in June, and then dropping it at the end of last month.