Jeanne Cummings has, on occasion, shown a weakness for stupidity

It burns.

Bachmann taped an apology ad

Excellent. Apparently Michele Bachmann knows that the Hardball rant was extremely damaging, and she's made an ad in which she apologizes for it.

This is like that Tom Feeney thing, but even better because he was just involved in a far-reaching scandal, whose stain was old but hard to get out. She, on the other hand, either forgot or didn't know that most Americans, even the ones in her heavily Bush-supporting district, aren't raving lunatics who want Democrats investigated for disloyalty.

It hasn't been released yet. Looking forward to seeing it.

Not bad, Joe. Not bad.

There's a new McCain ad (web or "real" I'm not sure but what difference does it make at this point?) that's focused entirely on Joe Biden's "tested" gaffe.

Given his track record, I think it's a tremendous credit to Biden that it's October 24 and this is the first McCain ad he's starred in.

Hitting harder now

Back when things weren't looking quite so good on the polling front, there was a lot of speculation that the Obama campaign was just too reluctant to really go after McCain aggressively. Well I'm no expert, but to me this ad appears to be filmed from the viewpoint of an old man staggering around the Oval Office with his vision going dark at the edges:



Strong stuff.

Taking John Cornyn seriously: Can it be done?

In sea of silly political ads, there's something about John Cornyn's in particular that get at me in a profound way. First it was "Big Bad John", now it's John Cornyn: bipartisan change agent.

It's gratifying to see one of Bush's most stalwart henchmen realize he needs to run the hell away from him. The last rat and whatnot. But watching him standing out there alone, in black and white, in Palo Dure Canyon, TX, silently, comfortingly thrusting his chin out towards the camera, I couldn't help but wonder whether there was a Jeep commercial being shot at the same time or if the senator actually went out to the middle of nowhere with a camera crew to shoot this ad.



h/t publius

Questionable message

This ad takes numerous clips from the debate of Obama saying John McCain "is absolutely right" about this or that (before getting to his disagreements). It then asks the viewer to consider whether someone with this pattern of agreeing with John McCain can be trusted to lead. I'm having a hard time figuring out how this works as a McCain ad.

"Hi, I'm corrupt Republican Tom Feeney..."

I was just sitting here having having a cup of coffee. Just reading the paper, next to some fruit, in a douchebaggy lavender open-collar dress shirt... Anyways I just wanted to tell you, the good people of FL-24, that I'm really sorry about that Abramoff thing. I didn't know what the deal was. Really.



Via Chris Cillizza, who writes:
Politicians, as a rule, don't like to apologize, and they certainly don't like to apologize in front of tens of thousands of viewers. And, there is recent evidence that a mea culpa by an endangered politician doesn't make things better...

Oh no, I'm sure "I embarrassed you" (he actually says this in the ad) is actually a stunningly effective bit of political messaging. But time will tell.

Update:
“Obviously, the ‘mea culpa’ ad is not a huge genre in American politics,” said Ken Goldstein, director of the Wisconsin Advertising Project, a University of Wisconsin project that collects and codes political ads. “If someone has done something bad enough that they think they need to apologize for it with a television ad, they’ve usually decided not to run.”
via

Big John

John Cornyn, ladies and gentlemen.