Bill Halter drives Dustin McDaniel to distraction, which amuses me.

So today we had a little shadow skirmish.

Attorney General McDaniel had somebody whose name I didn’t recognize send around a terse little email saying very simply that he was filing articles of  incorporation to get formally geared up to run for Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2014.

With Mike Ross having found private sector work, Halter stands as McDaniel’s likeliest rival.

So Halter had somebody whose name I did recognize — it’s Bud Jackson, a grating spokesman Halter has had around for several years — issue a statement  that people are sick and tired of perpetual campaigns like this and that an announcement for 2014 undermined candidacies for 2012 and that a guy could better spend his time trying to pass ethics reform.

Ouch.

You will recall last week’s hilarity when Halter joined up with the Better Ethics Now committee, forcing McDaniel, who hadn’t wanted to say anything about this ethics initiative for which petitons are being cirulated, to say oh, heck, he’d vote for it if it got to the ballot.

I score this 2-0 for Halter — last week and this week.

McDaniel is going to have to step it up. He’s getting drubbed by a guy from exile.