New Ads

Democratic operatives oft stand accused of not really knowing how to play this game, but when I saw this DSCC attack on George Allen on TV last night, all I could think was "man, that was a good ad." Perhaps people are learning. It still does strike me every election season, however, that political advertisements seem incredibly crude compared to the ads used for most commercial products. Or, rather, when there's no election ongoing, you see two types of ads. Some are nice, slick spots put together for national brands. Some are incredibly crude spots put together for random local brands. Politica adverisements tend to look like the latter sort of ad -- as if no advances had been made in the theory or practice of advertising over the past twenty years. It's odd.