Jason Baer, a well-known digital marketing name in Arizona, has created an unusual political pay-per-click challenge around John McCain’s Vice presidential pick.

The requirement: To create an effective 25-character PPC ad around her. The winner will receive $200.

Contest closes today at 6 pm (Pacific). Details here.

In case you’re wondering, people do bid on keywords around candidates. Type “Sarah Palin” into Google, and there’s one paid ad that appears for www.indecision2008.com which links to a Comedy Central site (“Something approximating election news…”)

In what must be a measure of $$$ attached to Washington keywords, type in “Joe Biden” and you’ll see about six paid ads. One of them links to an Obama campaign site, another to MoveOn.org, one for the New York Sun, and another for CafePress (selling Obama stuff.) But one exhibits a nice guerilla tactic from the so-called unsavvy new media candidate – a link to a landing page on John McCain’s site, Decision Center.